Moments of Clarity
by Estill
Summary: First Story published. A serious soul from a serious world is reborn in a place where the possibilities are endless and dangers are everywhere. A new player emerges on the board and he isn't going to go along with what was once written. He's going to write his own story no matter what.
1. Chapter 1

It is widely agreed that childbirth is one of, if not the most, painful things to go through. I agree totally. To all of you out there you should be thankful that when you are born your brain isn't developed enough to process thoughts or remember things. I went of on a tangent before I started my story. Oops. I guess I will start a bit earlier. I remember that dying was one of the most terrifying yet tranquil moments of my lifes. I died young and not well. At 20 years old I made the mistake of driving normally when I got T-boned by a semi. I was paralysed from the neck down and put on life support. I will spare you the sob story of saying goodbye to my family but it's safe too say I died feeling annoyed I didn't get to have a full life but also acceptant of my lot in life. Next thing I know I slipped beyond the veil and was in another place.

I don't fully understand what happened nor can I put into words what happened. In the blink of an eye and a second of eternity I found myself in a warm place. I was happy with whatever it was and interested that I still had consciousness. As a person who never truly believed in a religion but took the free lesson of religious studies to sleep in I guessed that this was some sort of purgatory? I continued in that warm place for a while, wondering how long it would take to lose my sanity with no other sensory input when I realised I _did_ have a sensory input. I never noticed before but aside from being warm there was a faint buzz all around me. The reason I realised this was because I could feel a new buzz developing in the centre of wherever I was. After being just a consciousness I had a central anchoring point and it was a saving grace for me because I was BORED.

Time passed, but I didn't really notice because there was no way to measure time wherever I was. The little buzz grew but it seemed different to the buzz around us. Out of curiosity I decided to probe the buzz around to see if I could find anything out. To my surprise the little buzz responded to my thoughts and touched the weird energy around us. I decided to start experimenting and I passed the time moving the energy around what I guessed was my new body. I was happily amusing myself mentally when an unfamiliar feeling entered my warm haven. What had originally been a comforting hum was pierced by a great arc of power that shot towards me. I felt myself engulfed in the power as it moved around my consciousness and illuminated what I realised was a body. It honestly terrified me so I lashed out with my own relatively pitiful power. I felt the great energy pause and then retreat. That was the first and only time I felt that feeling.

Not long after that my once warm haven started feeling rather cramped. I probed out and for the first time I perceived beyond my home. I felt through the cold emptiness outside my home until I suddenly passed over a large beacon of energy. After son long with not much to entertain me aside from watching my body grow and a random terrifying incursion I was ecstatic to find something to interact with. So I did what any rational adult does when confronted with something strange. I poked it. There was a small flicker for a moment but no real change. I kept poking to see if anything happened but eventually grew bored. I continued my review of the world around me occasionally finding beacons and trying to understand just what I was doing.

Time passed and my home got more uncomfortable until finally it suddenly contracted and got painful. As you might predict from how I started this recount and my general passage I was going through childbirth. As the child. I already new that childbirth for women was bad as I was present when my sister gave birth but it was just as bad for me. My fragile being was being squeezed and pushed while I was freaking out. It HURT. I threw my consciousness as far away from my body as I could to see if that helped and ran into a very large beacon of energy. Unlike all the other beacons I had felt outside my home, this one was much larger and more... condensed? powerful? It was difficult to explain but it was like a thunderstorm compared to some static electricity. I instantly new that this presence was powerful and dangerous so I did as humans do. I threw a rock at it. I picked up a little bit of my essence and moved it out towards the feeling. The form barely flickered but I knew it noticed me. It withdrew and, for lack of a better descriptor, hardened. I decided that it was not a friend and backed away. This did distract me for a bit but I was drawn back to my essence and I sensed as my once comfortable home constricted even more and it's static buzzing that was once so comforting became irritated and strained.

Then with a final heave my conscious body separated from my home. On the 15th of July in a maternity ward in a world I new nothing about, I was born.


	2. Chapter 2

I was not your average child, as could be expected. The poor nurse on hand had never experienced such a bizarre birth. For one I was quite an early baby. I only stayed in my mother for 8 months before I came out. Early births usually spell trouble for the child so the nurse and midwife were prepared to deal with whatever problems I had. What they were not prepared for was a completely silent child. Yep, I forgot to cry when I was born. In my defence I had just gone through a really painful situation and my limited knowledge of what was around me told me there was a big unfriendly power nearby. So, from my experiences of, if you see a wild animal be very quite and hope it didn't see you, I stayed quite and hoped I didn't get smited by the big scary stormcloud. The midwife on hand was also the one who I had mentally dubbed "Big Scary Stormcloud" and had felt my not so subtle probe. So, the midwife had an early birth who wasn't crying but breathing normally, who had at the age of not even born yet probed her chakra. Fortunately, for me, she decided to finish the process of my birth then log the strange circumstance for someone else to deal with. So, with the ease that comes from practice and experience, she cut my cord, cleaned me up, swaddled me in a blanket and gave me to my mother.

My abnormal childhood continued from there. I had a grown brain starved of information that suddenly could SEE. I was ecstatic that all the things I could vaguely puzzle out now had visual representation to be coupled with. With my newfound sight came the realisation of where exactly I was. It happened approximately a week after I was born. My mother, I couldn't think of her as mum no one can replace my real mum, had taken me in for a quick check up as she was worried for me. I still wasn't crying like other children, when I was hungry I would gesture or gurgle, when I woke up I would just lie there and when I had to shit I would shit and not mention it. All in all my parents was very happy with my behaviour, who wouldn't be she got to skip out on the sleepless nights most parents get, but she wanted to make sure I was ok. So there I was a cute, fat, quite baby in the waiting room of the hospital when one of the more solid beacons walked in. I was still navigating using my energy sense thing so I knew the moment he walked by that he was one of the special people. I looked over and through the blurry vision of my feeble eyes I saw his face. Or more importantly I saw what was tied around his forehead. It was a Kumogakure headband.

I was quite conflicted when I saw that. I saw strong proof that I was in one of the coolest worlds I know and I let out an excited squeal. Then after my mother had gotten over her surprise I had actually made a sound, I realised just what that meant. I had watched most of the Naruto series and a little of Shippudan but what I really enjoyed where all the fanfictions for it. I remembered the stories of child soldiers, insanity and death so much death. I realised that I had gotten VERY lucky with where I had been born. From what I remembered of the Naruto universe, which admittedly was not very extensive, Kumo was one of the stronger villages that was in general on par with Konoha. Konoha. Damn, now I need to find out what time period this is. I know we are at least not in the warring clans period which is a relief but the best thing to do would be to find out which was the most recent Shinobi world war. I don't know what I will do when I meet up with the main characters from canon so I won't think about that for now.

At that time though I only had a 2 week old body with limited senses. I needed to get moving and talking as soon as possible. From the moment I started crawling I was exploring my house and scaring my mother to death. My mother was a kind woman who was obviously not a "main character" if her lack of coloured hair or distinguishing features was anything to go by. Even though I was not a normal child in the least she cared for me and encouraged my little explorations around our house. However she drew the line in some areas. I was not aloud to enter my fathers study and I wasn't aloud to climb the shelves again. One of those 2 rules I obeyed. In general I just kept an open mind and tried to find out how much of this world matched up with the world I had read about in my before life. Does that make this the after life? Huh. After my second birthday I finally figured out what my second sense was. It was chakra sensing (kind of obvious in hindsight).

The way I learned this was when I was passed by one of the larger beacons that I associated with shinobi. I was looking about with my chakra sense when she noticed me probing her. Insantly she was on guard, ninjas are a paranoid bunch, and she stalked up to my mother with her hand tensed near a sword on her hip.

I still hadn't figured out how to speak the language there, I had experience with majorly European language in my first life and the new language was some sort of dialect of Japanese. I watched as the shinobi tersely spoke to her and felt my mothers surprise. She said something back but the nin wasn't buying what she was saying. He took hold of her arm and gestured in a universal term of "Come with me or face the consequences." We left the civilian sector of Kumo and started heading underground passing what looked like cells. I realised that my thoughtless action had gotten my mother in trouble.

I remember that the Yamanaka clan from Konoha are the only people with mind reading techniques and made the connection that they were going to torture my mother. My sweet, comforting mother was going to be taken away for something I had done. There was no decision making purpose for me, no-one hurts my family, I reached out with my sense and poked him. It, as I look back on it, was one of the stupidest life changing moments of either of my lives. I watched as the nin's eyes tracked from my mother to my small form and widening in surprise. The kunoichi gestured at my mother, questioning if she could hold me. My mother, sweet thing that she is, gave her a look that promised pain but reluctantly handed me over. I felt the shinobi pick my infant body up and look me in the eyes. Her eyes held the steely gaze of those who have seen the other side and not liked what they saw. I knew in the moment I had ROYALLY fucked up. The shinobi spoke to me slowly in words I could understand.

"You touch me?"

I thought about the pros and cons of revealing my ability but in the end I just wanted to get this over with quickly. I nodded my head at her. She looked from me to my mother and fired out a bunch of words quite quickly but I was able to make out the dreaded word "Tests" and "Chakra sense.". My mother bristled and like a mother hen took me from the kunoichi's arms and gave her meanest glare. Go Mum! I'm not sure what they said but the shinobi backed off an mum took me home.

I didn't see that kunoichi again so I guessed I was fine. I continued the life of an infant, I read as much as I could to learn about the world and I explored my house and as much around as I could. The one place I had never been to in my now 3 and a half years was my fathers study. Father was distant and didn't take as much interest in me as my mum. I suppose it could be because he was mum didn't work but we had a very nice house and didn't seem poor. The fact was there were many days and sometimes weeks where I wouldn't see my father. I would ask my mother where he was and she would just smile, ruffle my blonde hair and say he was working. My curiosity had finally won out and I decided to take a look what was inside.

There were a number of problems when it came to seeing the inside of my fathers study. First off all I couldn't even reach the door handle. In our house we normally had traditional sliding paper doors so I could open them, or trip and fall straight through them(I was quite a clumsy toddler). This was not so for my fathers study. He had a large strong door made out of Hashirama tree wood exported from Konoha. I guessed that because I could feel a faint echo of chakra in it as my chakra sense developed further. Also I asked my mom(I'm not omnipotent, yet). Anyway, the feeling of chakra in the tree reminded me of one of the most basic skills ninjas learn. Tree climbing.

One of the first thing I discovered about chakra was that it's a bitch to figure out without someone helping you. Before you can even use chakra you need to make it. I had vague memories of mixing spiritual and physical energy. So for the first time in a while I brought my sense back within my body and started searching for chakra. I quickly found a large amount of energy within me but I couldn't actually do much with it. I could move it around my chakra network and mould it but no matter what I couldn't expel it. After feeling rather stupid chasing my chakra around my body I realised that I forgot about the physical side of things. I move the chakra I found through my body until I come across the 8 gates. At the very bottom of the gates I find a place that I use to... purify the spiritual into chakra. The best way to explain it would be that you have this great amount of spiritual energy that you need to feed through a sort of strainer which makes it usable. Once it's purified I feel it flow into my chakra pathways and tenketsus. Therefor your physical energy would be how much you could strain at one time with your spiritual energy giving how much you can strain at all. No wonder Lee and Gai were made so powerful by opening the gates, it would be like instantly having access to all your chakra. I found that I was waiting on my physical energy to process it through, which made sense seeing as I had the body of a toddler.

The second thing I found out about chakra is that it is not naturally sticky. I went into it thinking that you just pool it and it sticks to things. Now I know it is not how it works and I had the pain of having to play ignorant to why there were holes in the walls. Anyway chakra sticking is like finding all the little pores in things and grabbing on to them. It's difficult to explain but if there was a frictionless surface you wouldn't be able to stick to it. After I finally figured out how to stick to things I walked to my fathers door. Placing one hand on the door I activated my chakra sticking and pulled to make sure it stuck. It took me 5 minutes to move 70cm off the ground but I finally got to the door handle. I put my hand on the knob turned it and realised it was locked. Of course the door to my fathers private study was locked how could I be so stupid. I thought about finding the key but that would take forever and it's important for ninja's to be able to pick locks. I climbed down and collected some senbon that I had found left in a playground. I tell you ninja's can be really precise and professional when they want but when they aren't on the job they are really untidy.

The third thing I learned about chakra (chakra sticking) was that it doesn't change gravity. The first time I climbed up the door I crawled there on my hands and knees. The second time I tried I was more confidant and tried to run up it. My feet stuck perfectly but in my young body I didn't have the core strength to stand sideways. In fact I think the only way people like Kakashi are able to stand sideways is by using chakra to reinforce them. Long story short I hit my head and had to start climbing up again with the senbon in my mouth. Once I got to the keyhole I inserted my senbon and got to work. In my previous life I had rarely strayed to the shadier side of the world so it took me a few tries to open the door. Thankfully I had read a few wikis explaining how bullshit movies are when it comes to lockpicking and picked up the right method. Finally, I had the door unlocked. I stood in silence in front of the slightly ajar door wondering what could be in there.

I walked through the door and saw a well furnished office with a large bookshelf behind a desk filled with books that looked like they were rarely read. The table was covered in various papers and a small photo frame in the corner of my family when we went for a picnic. I looked through the papers seeing various statements of trade prices and road safety, my father ran a large trading company that facilitated the trade of metals and goods for food and luxuries that Kumo doesn't have. Kumogakure has an excellent economy one of the best of all the hidden villages but we had very little space to grow food. I walked past one of the bookcases when I felt a shinobi presence. I froze instantly. My chakra sense range only reached about a meter so I could tell that the shinobi in question was on top of the bookcase. I tried to back away but my body language had given me away and the ninja dropped down. I spied a headband that I didn't recognise as one of the big 5, I really should have looked that up before now, the ninja had on clothes similar to the general Kumo attire; a grey shirt, combat pants and flak jacket but what made him stand out was his bright red shoes. "Either this guy is a really good ninja or he's new because he should be dead wearing those eye sores" I thought to myself.

"Dammit brat, this is a simple information gathering mission I didn't want to have to kill anyone today"

Huh, he talks also. I'm going to go with he's new seeing as he just gave away his mission. Or he's REALLY good and convincing me it wasn't an assassination... but no he isn't wearing an ANBU mask.

"Please mister" I decided I would play on the dumb kid stereotype "I don't think you're in the right house. My mummy could help you find where you're going, I'll go get her for you."

As I hoped the ninja blanched and hurriedly stopped me, unfortunately he slammed the door shut before I could leave so I was trapped in here with him.

"Look kid I need you to just forget this ever happened ok? I was just in the wrong place as you said so you don't need to tell anyone."

"Well... if you say so.". How thick can you get? My back was up against the door and he was moving towards the window when I felt something that made my blood run cold. My mothers chakra signature was approaching the door.

"Kaneki-chan I told you not to go in...". My mother entered and saw the ninja. "Kaneki get behind me."

I did as she told me and surreptitiously picked up the senbon I had used to open the door. It was a little blunt but if I got it in his eye he could be disabled.

"Damn woman, I was going to just leave and come back another time, I wanted to spare the kid. My client said no witnesses though so I'll try not to make a mess."

He started moving towards us and I threw one of my senbon at him to distract him. It had no strength and was poorly aimed so he just picked it out of the air. "Cute kid.". Thats alright, if he thinks that's my only senbon I can surprise him. I start pulsing my chakra sense as much as I can hoping one of the passing nin would notice. My mother stands firmly over me barely showing her fear and stares him in the eye.

"You will NOT hurt my son." Have I mentioned how much I love my mother? I'll never forget my first mother but this one was pretty good as well. I watched as the nin eyed my mother for a moment. A blur of movement, to fast for my young eyes to follow and my mother stiffened. Then in front of my eyes my mother collapsed to the ground with her throat slit. I stood there in horror looking at the ugly gash that opened my mothers neck to the world. It was my first time in either life I had seen someone die and I watched as blood welled up and out of her, her heart working against her as it continued to try and keep her alive. Eventually it lessened to a slow ebbing which broke me out of my revery. I dropped to her side putting my hand on the gash to try and stop the flow but the gash was larger than my hands and wouldn't stop and I was going into hysterics as the person who cared for me spasmed and went to the great beyond where I once was.

Through all this the ninja watched with muted pity in his eyes. "I'm sorry kid, I'll end you too and make it quick like her." He knelt down with his kunai covered in _her_ blood and I whipped around stabbing the senbon as hard as I could into his shoulder. He cried out, but it had only penetrated a little and senbon are precision weapons, not good for random stabbing. He looked at me, all traces of pity gone. "You little shit, you're done." I closed my eyes and waited, wondering if I would be reincarnated again or not and realised that I was even sadder I would die this time. At least in my first life I found love but in this world I never got the chance to even check out the cool jutsus. I opened my eyes ready to fight back and saw the nin lying on the floor with a ninjato through his heart. One of the nearby ninja must have heard the commotion and jumped through the window to help. The man took one look around the room and seemed to piece together what had happened.

"Come with me kid, we'll get you cleaned up. Are you hurt?"

I shook my head numbly as he picked me up and called in some ANBU. They started marking out the room while we went to the hospital. My father picked me up 2 hours later and took me home. Neither of us talked for most of dinner. I had never had the same relationship with him so I didn't know how to connect. I decided to try anyway, to find out what happened.

"Otou-san what's going to happen now?"

"Quiet Kaneki."

Well that isn't very encouraging. You would think he would have some sort of comfort for his 3 year old son who just watched his mother get murdered in front of him. I had self diagnosed that I was in the stage of denial and was feeling quite detached but still. Everyone knows that keeping emotions bottled up is rarely a good thing.

"Kaneki you will be staying with your oji-san from now on."

"Why? Will you be coming with me?"

"No I won't. I'm going out of the country for a bit and won't be back for about a month."

What an asshole. "Ok Otou-san. Will there be a funeral for kaa-san?"

I saw a storm of emotion in his eyes when I mentioned her. Pain of course but also what looked like anger which only strengthened when he looked at me.

"Yes there will be, later. For now we are going to try and find out why that ninja was in my office when you entered."

"I remember he said it was an information gathering mission." Wow, it looked like he was blaming _me_ for her death. To be fair it was basically my fault she was there when the ninja was. If I hadn't been there the ninja would have taken what he wanted and left without harming us. A lump formed in my throat as I suddenly felt incredibly guilty for her death.

"They will pick you up tomorrow at noon. Go pack your things Kaneki."

Just like that my life as a happy little toddler was over and I moved in with my grandmother. I had a little surprised when 2 days later the konoichi I first sensed turned up at the door.

"Hey kid, I heard about your mother so my condolences."

How the hell do you answer that? "Thankyou ninja-san, did you know my mother?"

"Honestly all I knew was she was the person stopping me from getting you trained up. Kid I'll be straight with you. You are the prodigy Kumo desperately needs. Kumo produces average shinobi with in good amount but we can't keep up with all the prodigies that come out of Fire. I'm going to get you started on some training and when you're five you're going through the academy. You understand?"

I think it through. Mum obviously was stopping them from dragging me into service the moment they noticed my chakra sensing. I had always planned to become a shinobi eventually. At first it was because I wanted to have fun. That's still one of my goals but if I become a great ninja I will be able to stop other kids from loosing their families like I have twice. It's not like she was really asking me a question so I answered what we both new I would say.

"Hai sensei."


	3. Chapter 3

The kunoichi took me from my new home to a training ground on a nearby mountain peak. The village training grounds were set up on plateaus and slopes of the mountains, there wasn't very much space but it's better than nothing. As we were walking along I questioned myself on what I would reveal about myself. She already new that I had chakra sensing skills so there's no use hiding that in fact I need to work on it because my current range of a meter around me is pitiful. What I was really debating was if I would tell her about already having access to chakra. The way I saw it if I told her about it I would be better trained in how to use it and be able to progress further but at the same time that would make me even more valuable to Kumo and they good start sending me on high rank missions like their very own Itachi or Kakashi. I knew that compared to those two I am nowhere near as naturally talented, I just have the advantage of adult levels of thought, but even with they're talent they both went crazy after doing those missions so young. I'm not sure if my thought processes are effected by my childish body, I know I have large spiritual chakra like an adult but I certainly don't want to go through emotional meltdowns that come with a developing mind. Oh lord I'm going to have to go through puberty again. Let's hope this body gets a better deal with acne.

I decided to play it by ear and here what the ninja's expected of me before I made a rash decision.

"So Ninja-san, what will you be teaching me?"

"I will be working with you to develop a body of an elite ninja. We will be doing light exercise to begin with so we can ease your body into it then stepping it up. I will also find you some exercises to develop your chakra sensing. What is your range at the moment?"

"I can sense anything within a meter of me and when I focus I can reach up to 3 meters. Will we be doing any weapons or jutsu training?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself kid. Your sensei when you graduate the academy will take you through Jutsu training and any specialised weapon training you want. We will do a little work with thrown weaponry but my training with you is for preparing your body, then the academy will give you the taijutsu, survival, tracking etc. then your sensei will fine tune you."

This was great news. It seemed that Kumo would be investing into developing me into a strong ninja before using me. I understood why, the ninja economy of Kumogakure was well developed and our military, while not as strong as Konoha, was no push over. We don't need to rush our prodigies through academy and onto the field.

"Hai sensei. Shall we get started then?"

She laughed, "You sound so eager for this. You'll learn."

What followed was a truly unpleasant day of her testing my physical limits. She started with seeing how flexible my body was. Seeing as I was still a child I could bend in ways my adult self would wince at, but the kunoichi didn't remark on it. Next she had me deadlifting to see how strong I was. I struggled my way to being able to lift 12 kilos before I couldn't continue. Next she had me doing 100 meter sprints to see how fast I was. She finished off the test by running laps with me up and down a mountainside to test my physical endurance. By the end of it all I was sweating in the cool mountain air and sore all over.

"Alright kid here's the verdict. Although I don't usually train 3 year olds I can tell you that you are not have great strength, speed or endurance and your flexibility is slightly better than other kids your age."

I was shocked by that. Sure I had spent a large amount of my time reading and researching but I had been doing stretches and light exercise every day, which I was pretty sure no other kids, aside from the ones in clans, would be doing that. I guess I was to arrogant in my self assessment.

"Which of my faults will we be working on first sensei?"

"Aww no reaction to calling you a weakling? Seriously kid you're too serious, I haven't seen you display any emotion since we started today."

I fixed her with an even stare. "Sorry ninja-san, I have been trying not to display my emotions since my mother died." Yeah a low blow I know but it's true. I hadn't been able to get rid of the guilty feeling that pervaded my thoughts. Every time I felt happy I remembered she couldn't be happy again, every time I felt angry I realised she had better reason to be angry. All my emotions seemed... wasteful and childish in the face of death.

"Sorry kid." The kunoichi said with a wince. "You should probably talk that out with someone, keeping emotions bottled up to much can be hazardous."

"Hai sensei."

We stood in awkward silence as the kunoichi tried to give of a comforting vibe and I rearranged my thoughts so I don't turn out like emo Sasuke. She broke the silence first.

"Anyway, we will be working on your speed and endurance first, you will need time to grow into your strength. Go home for now so I can make a training program for you and take this sheet. It has a list of the different foods you should be eating to stimulate growth in your body."

"Do I have to follow it exactly?" I let out a little whine because I'm not seeing cookies on the list. I may be in a dangerous world but I will not give up those little morsels of heaven for anything. Of all the things I remember from my world I actually remember about 6 recipes for my favourite cookies which I will have to make and probably could sell for a good profit.

"That's what get a reaction out of you? Food?"

"Food is important."

"You're not wrong kid. No you don't have to follow it exactly but try to keep to it as much as possible. Now go home."

"Thank-you sensei. Before I leave will you tell me your name?"

"My name is Izumi Saki. You may call me Saki-sensei. What's yours?"

I sweatdropped. She had been training me all day and didn't even know my name? I was also having an internal crisis as I realised I had just created a genjutsu of a water drop on my face and wondering if there were any other anime expressions that could be reproduced?

"My name is Kazama Kaneki."

"Cool, now scram brat. You know the way back."

"Actually I don't." But by the time I said that she was already gone. Damn it I thought the weird quirkiness was centralised around Konoha and Naruto. I started trying to find my way back when a voice drifted to me through the breeze.

 _"Think of it as a training exercise."_

What an asshole.

/-Page Break-\

"I'm home."

I returned to my grandparent's house and entered through the window as I didn't have a key. I slipped off my shoes in my new room and stared at my half unpacked suitcase. I'd gotten back at about 10 at night, it had taken me three hours to navigate my way out of the training fields after getting lost and routinely stopped by ninjas curious as to why and how I child had gotten into the restricted ninja section. I was tired, hungry and dirty. I stripped of my things and made my way into the shower where I scrubbed myself down in steaming hot water to clean myself and work the soreness out of my muscles. When I stepped out of the shower I dressed in my pyjamas and felt fatigue settle into my bones. I walked out and saw my grandmother asleep in her armchair. I put a blanket over her so she wouldn't catch a cold then decided to go to sleep. I'll just eat a large breakfast tomorrow right?

Wrong. I was woken up at 7:30 by being yanked out of bed and out my window. I woke up quickly with the combined efforts of gnawing hunger and being wildly yanked about by something. I looked up and saw it was Saki who was pulling me along.

"Saki-sensei? What are you doing?"

"You were supposed to meet me at 7 brat. I gave you half an hour to be late but this is not a good start to your traineeship. We're going to work extra long because of that."

"You didn't tell me to meet you at 7. Let me go I'm hungry."

She stopped dragging me along behind her and looked at me. "Well shit sorry kid, no matter we're going to get started training now!"

"But what about food?"

She looked at me sagely and said "A ninja must be prepared to go without food at any time."

I gave her an unimpressed look but took it. She was right, even if I was getting really hungry by now, the life of a ninja is rarely considerate enough to give you time for something as luxurious as breakfast.

We arrived at our training ground and I started stretching out. My teacher seemed more friendly and approachable now she wasn't acting like a tough kunoichi and more like a mentor.

"Alright first thing on my list is you're going to warm up by running up and down the east peak mountain carrying increasing amounts 10 times then 1 time on your hands."

Okay maybe the tough kunoichi thing isn't an act. It feels like I had scored Kumo's version of Gai as my teacher. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that.

"Ano, Saki-Sensei, are you a taijutsu specialist or something? That sounds quite difficult." More like impossible. I was not even 4 and she was making me do crazy training like a full ninja.

"Why yes, kaneki-kun (I felt thousands of people flinch when she said that) I am a taijutsu specialist. This training is practically the same what I do to train taijutsu specialising genin."

"Genin. Who are usually 12. 12 year old genin who have already been training to be taijutsu specialists. Why can't you see this might be difficult for me?"

"Nonsense, you'll pick it up really quick. I can tell that you are a very determined person."

Time to test how bad she is. "Yeah, one could say I'm in the springtime of my youth."

She gives me a weird look. "What person in their right mind would say that?" Whew she's not completely lost. "If anything I would say you are BURSTING WITH LIFE'S VIGOUR!"

Oh lord save me from crazy taijutsu specialists. I decided to get started as soon as possible on my exercise to get it over with. The east peak is one of the taller mountains that surround kumo. It is a common spot for enthusiasts or shinobi to hike up and take in the view. Kumo already was literally hidden in the clouds, as it rested at cloud level, so when you climbed up the extra 300 meters to it's peak you can look out on the clouds. There is a little clearing at the top of it which is really nice for picnics or outings. I had visited there once with my mother and father. Good memories but a sour aftertaste.

After I finished my first journey up and down I was puffing a bit and picked up the weights my sensei set out. It was a long plank of wood that I put on my shoulders. It weighed about 2 kilos. Undaunted I ran up and down and by the time I got back my shoulders were aching a bit from the wood pressing into them as I ran. On my next return there were two empty metal buckets which I put on either side of the wood in grooves I just noticed. Each bucket weighed about 1 kilo. I could see how my teacher was going to be increasing difficulty so I stopped for a moment and gathered same moss and leaves to make shoulder pads. I ran up and down and found two little piles of sand. I was getting slightly annoyed because I hadn't seen my teacher at all. Had I gotten some horrible mix of Gai and Kakashi? A lazy teacher who gives ridiculous training sessions. I put the sand in the buckets(2 more kilos) then looked around for my teacher. I found her doing one handed hand stand push ups without a shirt on. If I possessed an older body the sight would have been quite erotic but as it was I was just impressed by both her strength and her rack. Hey, my body can't but my mind can appreciate it alright?

"No stopping Kaneki." I didn't notice her move but I could feel more weight settle into the buckets.

"Message received sensei, I'm going."

I continued until I was carrying 15 kilos on my shoulders. I was fully puffing and sweating and absolutely STARVING. I paused for a moment when suddenly Saki-sensei appeared next to me.

"Do you know what this exercise teaches aside from physical endurance Kaneki?"

"No... *puff* sensei." This better be good.

"It teaches the resilience to keep doing your job even if it keeps getting harder with no end in sight. I noticed that you were still hung up on your mothers death so I decided to give you some tough love. In your life, family will die, friends will leave you and lovers will leave you with a broken heart. Even after all these trials you will have to continue. In the end what you get out of this life is only measured by what you think. If you find yourself dying in the fields I personally would not wish to be thinking if only I trained harder or something like that. I hope I would die knowing I gave my all for my friends, family and country and I made MYSELF proud. So what are you going to do?"

That's a lot to swallow sensei. It did strike a chord with me though. I finished my last life unfulfilled and I don't want to end my second chance like that.

"I will... *puff* persevere."

"Good."

Then she vanished. I picked up my burden and noticed it was another kilo heavier.

"Damn it Sensei I thought we were having a moment there!"

Drifting on the wind I hear _"I told you not to stop..."_

I have got to learn how to do that.

I continued on, painstakingly slow eventually unable to do more than take step after step up the mountainside. A few civilians passed by on pleasant hikes and gave weird looks to the red faced boy carrying buckets of sand but said nothing. Eventually I arrived at the bottom of the mountain and didn't see anything new waiting for me. I sank to my knees and slid out under the now 22 kilograms of weight and took a deep breath. Sensei walked out from behind a tree and raised an eyebrow at me.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

I groan and remember I have to do it on my hands now. Slowly I pick up my trembling exhausted body and flip on to my hands. My balance isn't great but I am able to stay up standing still. Sensei nods her approval.

"Your balance isn't too bad. I will do this last lap with you. You're taking to long."

My spirits raised then sank with that. I thought I had been doing well but again it seemed I had underperformed. I continued up the mountain, starting on the gravel switchbacks that were quite painful for my hands, making me wish I had gloves, then up further onto just rocky paths which were less painful but easier to slip and cut yourself. I finally made it to the top of the mountain and collapsed in a heap. Wordlessly my sensei passes me a canteen and I gratefully take a large gulp. It tastes lemony and I realise it's an energy drink. I nod my thanks than flip up to begin the descent. My sensei watches me as I disappear then follows. As I'm making my way down a switchback my left arm gives under the strain and I flail out with my right cutting my hand as I fall. My body falls sideways, the upper half landing roughly on rock, too far to the left and I fall over the edge. I fall 1, 2 3 meters before I feel warm, muscled arms catch me. I look up to see the concerned eyes of my sensei.

I wiggle my way out of her arms while she watches me and then to her surprise I flip up again and continue down the path.

"Stop Kaneki, you're just going to hurt yourself"

"No sensei, I will finish. I'm going to be better than all your taijutsu students one day and if I want to do that I can't just give up in training." I grit out from behind clenched teeth.

She looks on unhappily but allows me to continue. I continue hand after hand, barely aware of the looks I'm garnering from the people who pass us. I only realise that my hand is pleading when I reach the gravel section and leave behind some blood. I am determined but not stupid so I stop and quickly bandage it with the leaves from my shoulder pad. I tremble as I once more stand on my hands and continue. Finally after what seems like an eternity I arrive at our training area. I collapse on my knees and throw up the liquid from the energy drink my teacher gave me and curl into a ball to recuperate. My sensei comes up behind me and runs my back.

"How can I ever get strong enough to protect myself and others, I can't even complete your first day of training."

"Kaneki," Saki is speaking in a soothing tone, "That was not a real training exercise. That was to test your endurance and to teach you your limits."

"I guess I failed then huh?"

"No Kaneki, you did wonderfully. That kind of training would generally be for a chunin or jounin level ninja, not a kid like you. You are an incredibly determined individual Kaneki. I'm impressed."

Just like that I felt pleased that I had impressed her. Her tough, no rule breaking exterior contrasted so much with the person sitting next to an emotionally unstable child but it also made her a person I could look up to and trust.

"Thank you sensei. Are we finished now."

"Yes Kaneki. Go home, clean up and I'll see you here tomorrow at 7. I want to see that fighting spirit again."

"Thank you Sensei. I'm going to go eat a great big lunch."

"You can't do that. My diet for you says you have to eat a small lunch, just a sandwich or some salad."

"WHAT!"

"Yeesh I'm just kidding. Scram brat go eat something."

With that my first day of training ended.

* **A/N: For any of you who have a problem with the philosophy I wrote or how hard I'm being on Kaneki, I wrote what is my personal philosophy in life but I don't want to force it on you. I just want a good reason for Kaneki to be motivated and determined besides his mothers death. If you have any problems or suggestions send me a review and I may or may not include it later.**


	4. Chapter 4

I arrived home at 12:30. It was crazy to me that that had all happened in one morning, it felt like it should have been an entire day or at least a chapter of a book. I walked into my new home to see my Grandmother docilely making a batch of cookies. I'm a little surprised at how calm she is but thats quickly offset by the awesome fact that she's making cookies. If there's anything grandmothers can do, it's cook and my grandma knows how much I love cookies. I still remember some of the recipes my first grandma and I would cook so when I came over my grandma would be happy to have her little helper cooking with her. With that in mind I walk up and offer my assistance to her.

"Oh Kaneki-chan, yes I remember your father said you will be staying here a while. I could have sworn he said it yesterday though."

I face-fault(another real life anime feature, I should definitely try to exploit this). She didn't even realise I had been kidnapped. Aside from being an amazing cook my grandmother was also getting a little forgetful. I shrugged and gave a basic outline that I had indeed arrived yesterday but late and been kidnapped in the morning. She listened to the story with an amused look in her eye and when I finished she patted me on the head and gave me a cookie.

"Kaneki-chan you have had a rough week I see." I suppress the urge to snort at the understatement, "Go get yourself cleaned up and I'll make you some lunch ok?"

"Ok Grandma. Also, before I forget, here is a list that my sensei said I should be eating."

My grandma gives it a once over and gives it the evil eye. "I will take this into account but when I put something on your plate you will eat it young man."

I nod then head off to clean up quickly. After all my work I would probably eat the table if Grandma didn't put anything on it. When I return to the table piled full of rice, tempura and other delicious looking foods I am prevented from eating AGAIN by the presence of my father at the table.

"Hello Kaneki please sit down we need to talk."

What. Practically no word from him right after mum dies now he turns up? What's with that? Anyway I honestly don't know how he's going to act because before mum died she was there to calm him down and humanitise what he did.

"Ok then. What do you want to talk about?"

"You need to be trained to take on the head of the family business. You probably don't know but I am the head of a large trading business in the land of lightning. Your mother told me to wait but with her not being here I believe it important to start your lessons in how to continue the company."

So that's 2 people who want to train me that my mum was denying. I can't wait to see who's next because the latest invitation is not very enticing. Before I impetuously throw his request/demand I realise that I will need to be smart about this. My father is a businessman foremost so I will have to approach this from a business angle.

"I'm sorry but I think that Okaa-san was right in holding off on the lessons. I don't even want to be part of your business. Could you find someone else you could train for the position."

He barely pauses to think before responding, "It must be passed onto a family member and we are the only members of my clan left, it has to be you. You will be taking lessons in etiquette and economics to become the next clan head."

"And what if I refuse?"

"It is I who keeps you and your grandmother under a roof with food. Refusing is not an option for you."

"How well would it go down when your business partners found out you refused food and lodging from your dead wife's mother and your son?"

"It would be regrettable but it would be worse if you didn't learn the business."

"Then how about I do different jobs in the business every now and then?"

"You need to learn how to run the business not work in it. You could follow around and study how one of my underlings work."

"I would get in their way and could be influenced poorly. What if I took some economics lessons and every now and then come in to show you what I know?"

"You will take economics lessons and complete projects that I assign to you, with assistance from my company. Is that acceptable to you _son_?"

I could tell I'd pushed him as far as possible. It's not fun bartering with your 3 year old son after all. Besides, I already know a decent amount about economics so it shouldn't be to hard to complete his little challenges. "Ok Father, when will I start?"

"You will study the state of my company and how it is operated with one of my secretaries on Thursday and Friday afternoons. Your other time will be spent working on the projects I set you."

"And what will happen once I reach school age?"

"I expect if you are able to _barter_ with me you can complete schoolwork with little difficulty. There will be no change, you will just have to work harder."

Now is a choice of if I tell him I plan to go to the academy, not civilian school. I think that I will keep him in the dark about it as he will probably refuse. In the words of a wise man, 'Better to ask forgiveness than permission.' My father leaves and I sit down to finish the large meal prepared. My Grandma eyes me with concern but doesn't mention anything. She really is quite sweet but I do wish she would tell me what she thought of that. I feel as if I did well but have continued to create distance between my father and I. Well he certainly isn't working to build bridges. Learn with a secretary? That's not exactly father son times and secretaries are rarely endeared to their bosses, especially if said boss hoists their child off on them.

The next day after training my father arrives and takes me to his head office in Kumo. He shows me his office then calls over a secretary who was trying very hard not to look peeved over. He receives some paper from the secretary then leaves me with her. She looks about 25-30 with brown hair and a nice doll like face that's marred by a small grimace as she regards me. She starts the tour and I start to learn more about Kumo's economy and what my fathers company does. In a nutshell the company takes the many manufactured and mined goods of Kumo and exports them to neighbouring countries for things we can't produce ourselves. Land of fire for wood, Land of Rice patties for food etc. It seems that there is quite allot of competition between three Kumo companies for who is the largest importer. It all sounds very interesting and exploitable but I tuck those thoughts away and listen.

"Our company, Kazama's Caravans, is the largest importer of wood to Kumo and our largest export is ore and precious metals. We have well established trade routes with Land of Fire and we allow other merchants to travel with us for a price. We also have other trade caravans going to smaller countries for food, Suna for artisan goods and even some to the closer islands of Kiri for seafood and medical products but that's more difficult now due to the civil war there..."

Civil war in Kiri! That helps me narrow the time down in relation to canon a bit. She continues to yammer on about the difficulties of trading with different nations but I'm too busy planning. If the Kiri war has started that means I must be closer to Naruto's age group. I should try and find out which Hokage is in office. I know that the Yondaime died the same day Naruto was born so that would be an easy way to find my time period.

"..so us and one other company trade mainly overland so there's lots of competition that I will have to teach you. The third company is more international than us but is less competition because they mainly do shipping. I'll teach you a little about sea trade but that doesn't matter as much as we trade with land locked countries mainly. If you're trying to trade by sea you almost always go through Gato corporation so we will stay away from that."

Gato, Gato, Gato. There are sirens going off in my head that name sounds SO familiar. I can't quite remember from when in Naruto Gato was from but I know he did something. Something involving his shipping company and... Kiri? I don't remember.

"Are you even listening to me? You are quite distracted, I hope our other lessons aren't like this."

"Sorry I was distracted, please continue."

So my first lesson continued until I had a basic idea of the structure and politics of the Kumo economical scene. We would continue to work on that for the next few weeks until my father was satisfied with my knowledge. I rarely had the same teacher for more than a 2 or 3 lessons which was fine because it gave me a broad view of the topic. It was actually quite interesting as quite a large amount of what I was learning had effects on shinobi. For example if one of our ore shipments went missing, depending on where it was Shinobi would be dispatched to find out what happened or if one of the shipments of food came in late or was intercepted it had the shinobi corps instantly on alert because cutting off supply lines to an isolated place like Kumogakure is quite common tactics in war.

I was an attentive learner which surprised my teachers, they didn't expect such a young child to so quickly grasp the subjects. It was actually quite annoying because the only person who didn't constantly underestimate me and coddle me was Saki sensei. After my show of determination she had taken it as a challenge to get me into shape. We continued with my exercise, training my endurance for the most part, then progressing onto speed training with different sprints and then some strength training. I was keeping up well with both trainings and my body was finally starting to develop more usable muscles. No more toddling about for me, I could run jump and role like an olympian, albeit a 3 year old olympian.

For my 4th birthday my Grandmother made me a cake and took me with her to a large ornate looking building on the edge of Kumo. We entered inside and a smiling receptionist greeted my Grandmother by name then ushered us inside. I couldn't believe my senses when a smell came wafting down the corridor. The scent of baking cookies had me hopping with excitement when I entered a room filled with plants and was confused. The smell was definitely coming from this room but I couldn't find the little slices of heaven. My Grandmother walked in behind me smiling.

"What do you smell Kaneki?"

"I smell cookies but where are they?"

She lets out a laugh. "Of course you would smell cookies, you're obsessed with them. What you are smelling is not actually cookies it's the plant _Traveler's End._ It gives off a pheromone which the brain comprehends as a comforting smell. You smell cookies because it comforts you."

"That's really cool. What do you smell Grandma? And why are we here?"

"Yes it is quite cool isn't it. I brought you here because you seem to have so much work on your hands I thought you could use a little time in this garden here to relax."

I noticed her avoiding my question but I let it pass. I was preoccupied by the many different plants surrounding us in what I suddenly realised was a greenhouse. There were many different scents and colours and altogether I was happy my Grandmother brought me here. It was quite relaxing. As I regarded the plants around me I noticed that not all of them were beautiful or had strong scents. In fact most of them looked like normal little plants that you could find on the mountainsides where I trained.

"Grandma, what are those plants? Do they bloom under different conditions or something?"

"You are quite observant Kaneki. This greenhouse isn't just for relaxing in you know. It's used for growing the different plants required for medicines and poisons."

"But why are they in this greenhouse? I see some of these on the mountainside near the training fields."

"Those are wild strains and are difficult to cultivate properly. This is just a small business so they decided to keep all their stock in one place for safety."

I processed what I'd just learned and filed it among my other plans for activation at a later date. By this point I had quite a few different schemes to help me that I needed to start. At the moment though, I need to continue training and gathering information. For now I will just enjoy my time here and complete my training like the good little prodigy I am.

"Why did the woman out front know your name?"

"I worked here for quite a while and visit here quite often. Sadly my memory is fading a bit and I don't have the fortitude to continue working in the garden here."

"Do you remember enough to teach me anything about them?"

"Well I could certainly try, I believe I made a few notebooks while I worked here that could help you. I always wanted to make an almanac but there are so many different strains and this is only in Land of Lightening!"

"Thank-you Grandma I would love to see your notebooks."

We both settled down to enjoy the scenery. She gave passing commentary on different plans that I pointed out and even gave me a few leaves to suck on that were called _Pepper Leaves_ which were nice and spicy. We went home after a few hours and while Grandma looked for her notebooks I walked up to the training fields I had been at this morning. There I searched around until I found a small normal looking bush with little black spotted leaves. I took one of the leaves and tasted it. Sure enough it was a pepper leaf bush and the taste was even stronger than the ones in the greenhouse. I remembered that in general herbs found in the bush or highlands were generally more potent, at least in my first life. That aside it was good to see I was correct in my assumptions that the herbs grew on the mountain.

I wandered around a bit collecting samples of leaves I remembered from the greenhouse for when I returned. When I returned my grandmother was happily going through one of the notebooks she had found. I showed her the leaves I found an with a gleam in her eye she pointed out the entries in her journals they corresponded to. It became less of a task for me and more of a game of matching leaf to entry and when we finally finished we were both hungry and it was getting dark. All in all it was an interesting birthday for me and my Grandmother. Just before I went to sleep my Grandmother came in and sat beside me.

"Kaneki you are doing a tremendous amount of work for someone your age. I know you may just think of me as an old lady but if you ever need some help you can ask me. I want to help you."

"Thankyou Grandma."

I fall asleep with the comforting presence of my Grandma beside me. Sadly the comfort doesn't last long as my dreams are filled with details and schemes tumbling over and over with no end.

 ***A/N - Sorry I was late on the update, I got lost on the road of life. This chapter was difficult to write for me as I basically made up a whole bunch of backstory to Kumo. I based it off what I know of remote cities, the Naruto wiki saying Kumo has the best economy and some ideas from other fanfictions. The pepper leaf is real it's from the broad leaf pepper tree that I encountered once while I was hiking - warning do not wipe ass with pepper leaf. My friends dared me and I couldn't sleep that night. Review, favourite and I'll try to update more frequently. :D**


	5. Chapter 5

A year passes until I am old enough to enter the ninja academy. In that time my father and I grew further apart. Our only interactions together were his reviews of my progress and review of my projects.

 _Flashback:_

"Kaneki I believe you are ready for your first project. I have found your progress adequate and believe it is time you made some effect on our business. Do you believe yourself prepared or have I overestimated you?"

God he's a prick. "Yes father I know I'm ready for this."

He nods and hands me a file. "This is our ledger for trade with a clan in Land of Mountains for rock salt." Wow sounds interesting. "Recently we have found that our traders have been receiving poorer quality goods for higher prices. You will find out why they are doing this and plan out a suitable response. That is all. Bring me your progress in a months time."

Has he maybe thought they are just trying to cut ties with him? Our company has slowly been declining because of the worsening relations between Kumo and Konoha. They are not the first companies to smell blood and want to get out, or in some cases get in and take a piece of the company. I head home and read through the ledgers. It's as he said. The salt coming in isn't as refined and they have been raising prices, stating that more people are asking for it. Ain't that the truth if they're starting with a new group they want to start with their best products.

I jot down a few notes and prepare a missive that a messenger will send to the clan later and then head off to talk to the traders to get a better idea of who their new trading partner is and how we can profit from it.

 _1 month later:_

"What have you got to report? I've heard that you have already taken action and our profits have already improved."

"I found that my hypothesis wasn't completely wrong in that they were trading with someone else. In reality their clan was going through a leadership change with one of the prevalent clan heads against trade with us. To counteract this I found who was backing him and bought out one of their caravans. With less profit from his backer he lost favour from the public and then I added jewellery to our next arriving caravan to make us look better. In the end they voted for a clan leader on our payroll and he promised to strengthen our relationships."

Father sits there thinking for a moment. Then he looks up with an unreadable look. "Where did you get the jewellery for the caravan from?"

"I siphoned some off from our caravan with Land of the Moon."

"So not only did you spend money buying a caravan from a small fry competitor, you reduced profits from our long distance caravan to Land of the Moon? You overestimated their worth to us. Good job with strengthening our ties but I'm not impressed by your use of resources. I'll give you a new project soon, until then continue your studies."

 _End Flashback_

More projects considered in the same vein. I would work on my studies until my father would give me something to fix. Nothing I did seemed to be good enough for him, which was understandable because I was actually sabotaging his company. I had 2 choices with the election and I chose a man with debts to the local Yakuza. I didn't need to send jewellery, I intentionally cut into the Land of Moon profits. I was being childish sure but I did have an end goal. I wanted my fathers company to get weak enough that he would no longer have need for me as his heir. No matter what he thinks, I want to become a ninja. I'm not going to be in a world filled with superpowers then **choose** to be a business manager. There are too many cool things to be done as a ninja and if I'm just a businessman I can't protect myself from the real dangers. It was also my own special fuck you to my crappy father but that's neither here nor there.

Aside from the business side of thing my training with Saki-sensei had taken a turn for the ridiculously difficult. Ever since my declaration to be stronger than her taijutsu students she had taken it upon herself to beat the shit out of me, I mean, improve my taijutsu and physical prowess. I would literally run myself into the ground somedays as she made me do more of her weird training exercises. Saki sensei wouldn't be satisfied with just pushups and punching a pad oh no she had to make it bring out the VIGOUR OF LIFE. I realised recently she only did that to get a rise out of me so I ignored her when she said that but it sure was scary. Imagine you're running blindfolded through a canyon and suddenly next to your ear you hear. "YES KANEKI YOU ARE FULL OF LIFE! CONTINUE RUNNING SO YOUR VIGOUR NEVER DIMINISHES!" I nearly jumped out of the canyon it scared me so bad. That wasn't even the worst exercise we ever did.

 _Flashback:_

I couldn't believe what she just said. She had suggested weird, unnatural, DANGEROUS training before but here I was drawing the line.

"Sensei no."

"Sensei yes. You don't get a choice in this."

Why does this world get filled with such weird people? Sensei had placed a needle in the Raikage's office and wanted me to find and get it. Already that's stupid because it's difficult to get access to the Raikage even if you're a high ranking ninja let alone a not even genin kid. Of course she had to make it more difficult by wrapping a Suna headband around my head. This was beyond stupid this was potentially LETHAL.

"Sensei if I go into the Raikage's office with a Suna headband on unanounced I will not just die, I will be turned into a blood splatter on his wall for him to admire. Where did you even get this? Aren't headbands supposed to be well guarded by shinobi?"

"I found it after a battle! I know it's going to be dangerous that's why this is a good test of your stealth! You have learnt silent walking and know how to walk up walls so all you need is to use your brain to navigate around the guards and enter his office. He probably won't even be there... probably."

I decide to try a different approach. With pleading puppy dog eyes I say "Sensei don't you care about your little student? If I die who will you have to torture under the guise of training?"

Saki picks me up and crushes me into the side of her. "Naww you're so cute my little Kaneki. You're right I don't want you to die but there are lots of genin who would jump at the chance to be trained by the great Saki Izumi!"

She strikes a pose then turns to look at me. I let out a small whimper and her grin widens further.

"Off you go!" Then she disappears. I cast around the training area trying to decide how to complete her impossible task when she does her wafting voice technique (she says she'll teach me it one day)

 _"You have until this afternoon to find the pin. Don't take the headband off because that's an instant failure!"_ Well shit. _"And you can't cover it either!"_ Double shit that was my plan. I guess I'm going to have to actually sneak my way into one of the best guarded places in Kumo to find a tiny object in the office of the most powerful man in Kumo. Why do I want to be a ninja again? Oh yeah on demand thunderbolts.

The first thing I do is navigate my way to the greenhouse my Grandma takes me to sometimes. It's on the edge of the civilian and ninja section so it's a good starting place. I decide that I'm going to need some help with this so I enter. By now I'm a familiar face and I only get stopped for a moment when they see the Suna headband.

"Why are you wearing that Kaneki-chan?"

Most of the staff love me for my babyish looks and constant attention. "My sensei is forcing me to kill myself. Can I take a few plants from the greenhouse?"

"None of the expensive or lethal ones ok? Tell Saki-san she should take it easy on you."

Huh that one knows Saki. That's a bit weird but ok. I enter and pick up some leaves from one plant and the seeds of another. Then I head out and start sneaking through the ninja district to the Kumogakure Centre of Operations. The ninja section isn't all that different from the civilian, it's just less populated. I guess after killing for them ninjas don't feel comfortable among civilians. Likewise for the shops it's generally a bad idea to sell explosive tags in a place where people think they look quite artistic. I keep to the streets as I win through to the KCO. I'm not familiar with this section as I live in the civilian sector but I guess one day I will so I start developing a mental map.

As I go along I realise how well designed this section is. It was full of confusing turns and dead ends and I realised how difficult for an enemy nin to infiltrate or attack here without knowing beforehand the route. Thankfully I had been to the KCO a few times with Saki-sensei to see how it's run and to deliver some paperwork for my father's company. I was passing through one of the streets when I realised how stupid I was. I have natural born _Chakra Sensing_ and I was wandering through a city blind. I quickly focused on it and expanded out my field of vision which achieved me exactly fuck all. I couldn't sense anyone within my range which was only 3 meters. I felt myself growing a bit frustrated by the apparent uselessness of my ability. Sure I guess with time I could improve the range of it and then I would be able to sense peoples chakra signatures at long distance but that wasn't exactly very helpful in this situation. What I needed was something closer to sonar.

I think to myself, Self, how do you create sonar using chakra sensing. Then I realise I don't know anything about my chakra sensing at all. The final thing I realised was that my idea of sending out a pulse of chakra would probably alert every single shinobi that it touched and was therefor a horrible idea. Disgruntled but now curious about my natural ability I moved on with my task. Down alleyways with high stone concrete walls reminding me of the streets of Paris but with dirt roads I continued searching my way through the maze that is Kumo. Finally after another hour of taking back routes and hastily hiding to not be seen by ninja patrols I arrive at the KCO. It's a large metallic blue colour built encompassing one of the many mountain peaks of Kumo. I can see from a distance the large character for lightning outside the window of the raikage's office which seems ill advised but honestly who would be stupid enough to break into the Raikage's office?

Sometimes my inner thoughts like to make fun of me.

I decide before I enter I will do some reconnaissance and so I use the chakra sticking on my hands and feet to climb up the outside of the building. It was a lot harder than I first thought because as I passed the second floor I luckily caught sign of movement inside and quickly scampered down so they wouldn't see me. I realised I would have to creep my way up looking through each window to see the next floor. I would have to go slowly enough to know if anyone was on the next floor but also quick enough to get off the current window before I was seen. My progress was agonising because sometimes I was able to move up quickly and other times I had to dance in and out of sight as shinobi went about their business.

I finally reached the level of the Raikage's office and peered in. Thankfully it was empty and I looked around to familiarise it's position with the corridors of the KCO I had already seen. I made my way down, thankfully faster than before, until I dropped into a rocky outcrop just near the entrance. I checked my reserves and was shocked to realise I had used half my chakra. I was no chakra monster like Naruto or Kisame but my chakra control was pretty good so I wouldn't have expected to waste so much power. Now that I thought about it glass is less porous than other surfaces so I guess would require more effort to grip too. Maybe if something is completely smooth it's impossible to stick too?

There are 2 ninja watching the entrance and I, at this point, don't have time to wait for them too move. They're too strong for me to fight past them, the entrance is too open to sneak past them and if I use a distraction only one needs to check it. I guess I will have to target the human side of them. I take out the seeds and start grinding them into a powder using a kunai and the stone floor. I cover my mouth and nose with some cloth then scoop up the small amount of purple powder I now have. I divide the powder into three sachets I fold out of paper and then put 2 in my bag. The final I poke tiny holes into then attach to a kunai. Holding my breath I lob my device as accurately as I can and it sails gently over the heads of the 2 ninja. They both watch the weapon sail past them in shock then look around.

"Who's there?"

Well they saw it which isn't a surprise but the powder should activate soon. I call out from around the corner with my cutesyiest childish voice possible, which thanks to my age is pretty damn childish. "Sorry mister it's mine! I didn't mean to disrupt you."

One of the ninja's look annoyed but the other ninja lightly smacks him saying, "Let him be Nasime, I like kids you know." Then she seductively flicks her hair over her shoulder. The other guy, who I seriously hope is her boyfriend gulps nervously.

"You do huh?"

I grin as my plan starts to work. The powder I made has finally entered there bloodstream and is affecting the section of there brains related to dopamine. Yep, my plan to get into the KCO is to get the guards really horny, hopefully enough to leave and pursue... other pursuits. In difficult times beggars can't be choosers and if it works than I don't have to do whatever Sensei is cooking up.

Back to the 2 drugged ninja it was really starting to heat up. They were barely paying attention to the area around them they were so wrapped up in each other. Now they are _literally_ wrapped up in each other. The aphrodisiac I used is quite strong possibly too strong. If they start going at it in the street I will be stuck. But no the female starts leading the male away with a sway in her hips and scandalous looks over her shoulder. I'm glad my body isn't anywhere close to producing hormones but even so it's an enchanting sight. As I here them pass I hear the guy whisper to her, "So you like kids do you?" Oops. I think I should have gone with a weaker drug and in a flash of guilt I am tempted to stop them. On the other hand my moral compass is a little non-existent at the moment so good luck to them.

I slip into the entrance and duck out of sight as quickly as possible. I'm in a reception area so unimpressive that its actually impressive. How to describe it's majestic dullness. The walls are that dull cream colour with a few stock photos of the Kumo mountains on the walls. Umm there's a plant in the corner a few seats and magazines and I can't continue because it's boring me to even think about it. I find myself drawn to making the room more interesting so I take some water from the little drinking fountain in the corner and mix it with one of the powder sachets into a paste. I walk to the wall and write the the Kanji symbol for lightning as large as possible. I know it's a waste of a useful substance but I hopefully will not have to use it again for a long time. I admire the large purple lightning symbol then decide to add a little flair of my own. At the bottom right box I write in tiny english letters 'Surprise Motherfuckers'. I know no-one will get the reference but I feel the duty to bring the famous line back or invent it I'm not sure what this world's relationship is with ours.

I continue sneak through the hallways that are all just as dull as the reception with there lack of anything interesting or memorable or... oh. I'm an idiot. They're intentionally plain so it's difficult to map out the maze of corridors. Those crafty bastards. Still I'm starting to get suspicious of the lack of Shinobi catching me. I can understand getting past some genin or chunin but any jounin level shinobi should have caught me the moment they found me. Somethings up. I am creeping along when my hairs stand up not just on the back of my neck but all of my body. I throw myself to the side and into one of the offices that line the halls as a large electric presence zips past me. I peek out to see a flustered looking genin with white hair looking around with electricity crackling through his hair.

"I swear I saw something. It looked like it had a Suna headband."

"How could you have not seen what it was but known it had a headband specifically Suna? You're wrong we need to catch up with sensei." A girl walked around looking like she had smelled something bad. She gave an annoyed look at the boy before turning on her heel. "If you don't catch up he'll make you listen to his raps again."

"But what if there is a Suna summon in here? What if it's the precursor to an invasion by Suna? If I don't investigate it they will blow up the KCO and I will have to work everyday to fix it and be unable to see my family which will make them sad leading them into a depressive spiral?"

What. That kid needs mental help or something. Of course I AM wearing a Suna headband so in the end he could be right but honestly way to overreact? Also if their teacher is rapping then they must be students of Killer B. Everyone in the village knows of the Killer B and his eccentric raps but I will be happy not to meet such a dangerous, unstable person for a looooong time. That being said training from him would be really helpful, but I'm pretty sure it would get me killed. I will at least wait until I'm a genin before I meet him.

I make my way without any other major troubles until I reach a large door with the Kanji for lightning on it. I cast a critical eye over it and mentally compare it to mine. I think mine was more colourful and it was a good centrepiece for the entrance but this one was obviously done by a professional. The elegant strokes in black on the blue and grey background certainly gives off a regal air. Once I'm finished with my latest random tangent I extend my senses as far as they can into the next room. I don't feel any chakra signatures except for some residual energy which I guess came from a jutsu or seals. I haven't been around many strong seals so I'm not sure if I can sense them. I slowly open the door and creep in when a large muscled arm shoots out and pulls me in. I hear a gruff voice I never heard before grunting. "Get in here brat."

 **A/N: Hey guys I'm back. I'm trying my best to get them out on time and they should come out regularly from now on now that I've covered a bunch of backstory. We will be arriving at the academy soon but I want you to know what you guys want for Saki. I already know how she's going to end up but I want to know if you want her as a Guy like character or not? I like Guy quite allot but I don't want to be copy pasting with a different colour so it's up to you guys. Anyway, please review harsh or not just give me constructive criticism and I'll see you all soon. Ciao :D**


	6. Chapter 6

I find myself being held in a highly muscled arm that is holding me about a meter off the floor. My instincts are screaming danger as I analyse the large dangerous man who DOESN'T HAVE A CHAKRA SIGNATURE! I mean come on that's totally unfair. I remember some episodes in Shippuden mentioning hiding chakra signatures but I thought it wasn't true. I stand corrected now. I look down the arm into the eyes of the Raikage and see a storm behind his eyes, an unrelenting storm that promises to tear down houses and uproot trees as it passes by. To my surprise the eyes soften but retain the promise of wanton destruction as my leader smiles at me.

"Damn Saki, you told me the kid was young but I didn't think he'd be just out of diapers."

I look around and sure enough there is my insane sensei lounging on a couch with a half eaten box of popcorn. She grins at me then turns to the Raikage.

"Hai, he's young but full of VIGOUR and he learns fast. I told you he would be able to make it to your office."

He grumbles then passes her a string of ryo which she accepts gleefully. He wanders over to his desk and starts filling out some paperwork. Sensei sits on the couch with the popcorn then gestures for me to come over. I am still a little lost as to what transpired but I head over anyway.

"Well kid I told you you would be able to do it. I followed you most of the way and I really want to know what you did to those guards. It was interesting but the delivery was poor and easily intercepted. Your navigation to the KCO was alright and your stealth in the corridors was quite poor. You will be working on most of that at the academy but I will start teaching you how to move quieter and attract less attention."

So maybe she's not completely crazy. She at least to the Raikage not to make me go splat but honestly I'm to young for my heart to be beating like this. I accept her criticism and subconsciously prepare myself for the brutal training she will give me but my mind is mainly focused on one thing. I need to make my chakra sensing better. To many times in the stories someone would deliver a finishing blow and poof it's a clone or a log or the real person was hiding underground. I decide I will enhance my sensing until no-one can fool it.

The Raikage finishes one of his papers then walks over to me. He doesn't kneel, I'm not important enough for that, but he does lean down to be closer to me. He speaks in an encouraging voice but he hasn't quite got the encouraging wise man vibe yet.

"Kaneki, you are one of the few prodigies Kumo can boast of at the moment. You have performed well in your most recent test and so I think it is time for you to join the academy. Their are things that one on one sensei's can't teach and I want you to spend time learning how to work with people. You will join the next class in 3 months time and stay in the academy until you are at least 8 then you'll be part of the shinobi system. For now get stronger and make Kumo proud."

 _End Flashback_

So now Saki sensei knows I can deal with insane missions and she has a time limit for how long she still has me she ramps up her training regime. I don't know how other people do endurance training but the way I do it is by running around Kumo. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, heck loads of people run laps to improve their fitness. My issue with this is the fine print under "You're going to run laps around the village today Kaneki." Firstly, Kumo is a mountain top city. Not on just one mountain peak because that's too mainstream. No it's around 30 mountain tops with some built up passageways between them which makes it really difficult to get around unless you know the layout of which mountain connects to which and how to get from one crossing to each other. So to do laps I have to run up and down the perimeter mountains to get to the different crossings while my lovely sensei throws things at me such as senbon, kunai or random boulders she finds.

As I approached my 4th lap she actually hits me with one of the senbon. Thankfully she doesn't hit any pressure points but I have to quickly tear it out of my leg before my movement tears any muscles. I glare at where I think she is and receive a volely of shuriken in my direction. My faith in her was starting to wane as I realise that she hadn't blunted any of her weapons. I try and think back to a time when she had and I'm startled to realise she never has. A small current of fear and annoyance runs through me as I yell, "Saki-baka aren't you supposed to blunt weapons when training with Kami-damned 5 year olds?" Being Saki she responds by throwing a boulder at me.

"That looks pretty blunt to me doesn't it?"

I scowl and turn to deliver a most definitely withering retort (I had nothing) when I feel a weight settle on my shoulders. I look to see her weights setup on my shoulders. Seriously this woman is trying to give me PTSD. I get the message and keep on running while planning to get her back for her straight up insanity. Granted she's moulded me into a pretty impressive kid, I could do things in my body that I would struggle to do in my previous life, but that doesn't really excuse the whole throw lots of sharpened trowels at the kid until he gets good.

I finish my 10th lap and Saki calls me to stop. I shrug off the light weights and gratefully take a proffered bottle of water. I sit there thinking about how awesome I am and how cool the academy is going to be when I come to an unpleasant realisation. As the raikage said after I finish the academy and become a Genin I will be in the ninja system. The keyword there is _after,_ for the moment my legal guardian is still my dad who already is training me to be his heir NOT to be a shinobi. He can deny me going to the academy and there would be nothing I could do about it. Sure the Raikage has the pull to get me instated but that would have bad impacts on his public image, kidnapping children for soldier training is rarely has good PR, so I'm not sure I want that to happen.

"Hey Gaki you look troubled. What could be diminshing my adorable students vigour on such a fine day!"

I wrinkle my nose at the grey clouds of our fine day then turn to her. "Sensei I just realised that my father probably won't let me go to the ninja academy."

Saki stops her stretches and turns to me with a scary look on her face. "What do you mean Kaneki-chan? You aren't telling me that all my training of you is wasted are you?"

Oh shit. She has a look that promises a life as a eunuch if I answer wrong. The one thing I know about Saki is she does not like wasting her time which is something I usually like but can be annoying when she abducts you because you're a minute late. "Uh, no sensei. I'm just saying there might be a little issue with my father kinda sorta training me to take over his business?"

The last part I mumble out as a question but she hears it fine. She leans in close to me with lidded eyes and says sexually. "Well it's nothing that you can't handle," I feel the press of a kunai near my balls, "right?" I gulp and nod at her and the kunai disappears while she smiles and continues her stretches. Damn woman, I'm physically old enough for her to do any sexual convincing what is she playing at... Oh. She's good. Maybe I'm reading to far into a joke but it does give me an idea that would deal with the problem of dad grooming me to be his heir and hopefully make him back off a bit. Looks like I'm going to have to play cupid.

Ok operation get biological father/sperm donor hitched is a go. Have you noticed how un-friendly I am with my father? Well the reason is that Saki has already trained me to do reconnaissance before starting a mission. So after observing and spying on my father for a week I have found that he is sleeping with his secretaries. Yeah, plural. He is currently sleeping with 2 of his secretaries and another woman from the logistics division. I'm sort of tempted to get them all together and let them kick the shit out of him but that's counter productive. Also I'm not sure for how LONG he's been sleeping with them but probably from before mum died so not only was he cheating on mum, he kept on fucking them right after she died. Burying my anger I remember my end goal is to get him married and with a new child who can take over his business. As far as I know he may already have another child, the man whore, but I need him to have a child and ACCEPT them. The only woman he takes enough interest in asides from sex is the woman from the logistics division, her name's Hana I think. She's a relatively high placed woman who I remembered assisted me in one of my projects. Time to work some magic and by magic I mean use my last pouch of super aphrodisiac.

The first thing I do is intentionally cause a problem in the logistics division, large enough to force my father's involvement but small enough to be solved by Hana. Once the big bad boss gets down to the logistic's group he gathers Hana and her colleagues in a meeting to be briefed. This is where I start my plan. First of all I discretely put a tiny amount on Hana, not enough to cause full sexual arousal but enough to incite... interest. The next thing I do is I put a little in his drink. My plan is to get him raring to go and then be attracted by the aroma she gives off. I feel a small twinge of guilt at manipulating people like this but honestly I don't care about him and Hana is already sleeping with him, I'm just helping her with moving the relationship further. I watch from a hidden corner as most of the men in the room are having difficulty ignoring her especially my father. Once the meeting is over he asks Hana to stay behind. There are looks of jealousy and envy from the men and a woman, huh didn't know you swang that way Kara, then Hana is left in the room with a small smile on her face while my father can't even hold eye contact with her. I release a little bit more of the aphrodisiac and smirk when the two embrace. The smirk falls off my face when they start undressing each other. Aw no I don't want to see this. They're both in there late 30's so they're not in bad shape but all the same I'm not happy with the way it's going.

I decide to interrupt them by slipping out then making some noise in the corridor. The two spring apart with her shirt half unbuttoned and startled looks on their faces. I breath a sigh of release then here exactly what I want to hear. "Would you like to have dinner with me Hana?"

Really us guys are so easy to manipulate it's a wonder women don't already rule the world. It's probably because it would be to troublesome to have to take care of all us men. She accepts then they split up to continue working. I get to work on my father by dropping a brochure to a nice romantic restaurant that Hana likes in his mailbox then I let the magic happen. At 6 o'clock he picks her up and take's her to the restaurant. Ok good that means he's thinking of actually having a relationship with her. I'm hiding under the empty table next to them as they talk while monitoring there emotions with my chakra sensing. It's not full empathic powers but when someone is feeling strong emotions you can feel it in their chakra. It's actually easier with civilians because they aren't constantly mixing and manipulating their chakra so the emotion comes through clearer. I can tell that the dinner is going well when the conversation turns to me and his ex-wife. I wince as my father blunders through, showing how he doesn't really care that much about me. It hurts me a bit but I know that he's not scoring any points in her books by acting so callous.

I activate my distract the conversation and change topics plan. I need to get someone to name my plans because I am shit at plan names. It involves me using my ninja accuracy and timing to successfully distract all attention while at the same time supplying a new topic for conversation. It's an obvious plan but I believe it to be genius in its simplicity. I flick a fly I caught and killed earlier into her water glass. She sputters and jerks away from the glass while my father takes her glass and fishes the fly out. He calls the waiter for a new glass but the psychological damage is done. Hana will not be drinking any more water tonight, instead she will be partaking more from the lovely 'complementary' glass of wine I bought for the two. The conversation switches to the wine the waiter brings them and I sigh in relief. Crisis averted. After the dinner they go home together and probably did the nasty. What? I didn't stay around to watch. I have homework and training to do.

Their relationship continues strongly after their date with me continuously laying subliminal messages with my father. I know what I'm doing with him but I have honestly no idea what to do for Hana. I just cross my fingers and hope she likes him. That being said I don't need to work very hard to get the two together. It makes me wonder how honestly troubled he was after mum's death because he seems to be moving on quite quickly. I try not to judge him too badly, maybe it's his way of coping but it is a little discouraging. There relationship is going along well but it's already been 2 months so I only have 1 more month to get his permission for the academy. It seems like I'm going to have to do something immoral. I need Hana to marry him and I know only one way to definitively give him a reason to marry her. Sure I could continue with the sly mentions of jewellers and weddings to my father but that's not certain. I'm going to have to convince him to marry her the hard way. She will need to get pregnant.

Now I know that it's quite a drastic measure but I don't know what else to do. Every time I mention to father that I want to go to the academy he brushes me off saying he needs an heir. Well if he needs an heir than he can have one, it just won't be me. So I set out on the path that leads me to the greenhouse I have become so familiar with. I let myself in and take a few more seeds from the plant. I also take some of the tiny leaves of a nearby plant and shred them to be tea sized. After processing the aphrodisiac I wait until my father has another date night then get to work putting more of the powder than ever before all over her house. I've noticed that they usually go back to her place, I guess out of courtesy for me. As I'm leaving the house I see Hana approaching and I quickly turn to run before she calls to me.

"Kaneki-kun wait!"

I sigh and turn to look at her. I carefully school my face and body language not to scream guilt and instead plaster wary curiosity on it. "Yes Hana-san?"

"Oh you remembered me?" Shit I forgot we'd only met once when she helped me a bit. I try to play it off.

"Yeah I remember you helping me. You also hang around my dad often recently."

A guilty expression crosses her face as she looks away from me. Wow, she actually feels guilty because of me, that puts her 1 step higher than my father. "Listen Kaneki, can you come inside? I kind of need to talk to you."

Um, inside? Laced with super aphrodisiacs inside? Even with the age difference that many hormones could lead her to something we would both regret. I give her a shy look and say, "Why can't we talk at the park? I was going to the park." Bit of a stretch as we're not very close to any parks but she bought it. So we walk to a park with swings and a sandpit where she sits me down on a bench.

"Kaneki I know you're very intelligent but I'm not sure if you'll understand all this. I just thought it might be important to tell you that your father and I are in a relationship."

I widen my eyes and give her a wary look. She panics a little and waves her hand in front of me. "I know that it might be a bit scary for you but we are together now and I just wanted to let you know. I wont replace your mother or anything it's just me trying to be with your father." She finishes lamely. Getting a little ahead of yourself aren't you Hana I laugh to myself a bit? Still I found myself liking her honesty and feeling guilty that I've been forcing her together with him so much. I justify to myself that she still likes him even when not drugged but a little voice whispers that she might not have been with him if it wasn't for me.

I struggle with myself as I war over what to do. Half of me is telling me to just go ahead with the plan but another half is telling me to stop interfering with this, that it's wrong. My problem is that I KNOW it's wrong but I think it's so far I should just let it keep going. Faced with a difficult problem that I can't decide on I do the only thing I can think of. I take a coin out of my pocket and with Hana watching me curious I flip it. As I watch it fly through the air, I hear it singing with the force I flipped it. To continue with the plan or pull out? Heads, tails, heads, tails.

Before the coin reaches its apex I have made my decision. The coin lands behind me next to the sand pit. I look into Hana's eyes and she seems a little surprised by my expression. I know what I'm going to do but I need conformation. "Do you love him?"

She gives me a smile and pats me on the head. "Yes I do Kaneki. Are you ok with that?"

I nod at her then turn and walk away. Honestly I'm not ok with that I think he shouldn't get another wife, the bastard, but if she says that without me changing her brain chemistry who am I to cry foul. I make my way into her apartment and deconstruct the aphrodisiac traps I set. It's a pity some of them are quite ingenious. Weighted pressure plate under the bed that will release more powder after receiving excess weight are the least of them but I dismantle them anyway. I may not have much of a moral compass anymore but children and by extension becoming pregnant is too sacred for me to mess with. I'll have to make up some way of forcing him to allow me into the academy.

The next day I knock on the door of her apartment at 7. She opens the door in her pyjamas looking wild then she sees me. A blush creeps from her face down her neck and I can see how far it goes, her pyjamas are not very covering. "Umm Kaneki can you come back another time? My apartment is kind of messy..."

"No now is the best time." Not even sorry that I'm cock blacking the bastard I walk through to see my dad in his underwear on the couch. Hana wasn't kidding they totally wrecked the place. Did I forget a trap or are they normally this wild? Eww not thinking about that. I sit down in front of my surprised father and speak calmly but with authority.

"I have a proposition for you." He sits up and regards me with more attention.

"I wish to go to the ninja academy. Hold your replies please." I cut him off as he's about to argue. "I have already been training for over a year with a Sensei and have spoken with the Raikage. I am a prodigy that Kumo needs to hold their own. Your response has always been that I am your only heir but from the looks of this place that probably won't last." He has the decency to blush at my crass remarks.

"I don't want to be the next head of your trading company. My proposal is that you let me enter the ninja academy and continue to provide support to me and Grandma until I start pulling a wage as a shinobi and in return," I turn slightly to Hana, "In return I will sign a contract saying I lay no claim to any inheritance or properties that you own and that your next child will be the heir to all your titles."

My father regards me for a moment then takes a deep breath and speaks in his usual annoying drawl he uses for me. "I see very little profit for me in disinheriting you. In fact disinheriting you would be easier and achieve the same thing. Your offer is denied."

I take a breath then reply. "You only have 3 viable options here. You can accept my deal which I think benefits the both of us equally, you can deny my proposal and be forced to let me in the academy when the Raikage takes action but that would hurt both of you reputations, or you can disinherit me which only hurts your reputation. The 2nd option is the worst for everyone so you can choose the 1st or 3rd. Your choice is between your public reputation or some support money until I become a ninja. Before you answer think on the effect on your already weakened company if it gets out you disinherited the son of your dead wife?"

He sits there looking unhappy for a moment, not a bad look on him. Finally he looks at me and says, "I'll draw up some paperwork."

 **A/N: Sorry if this had a weird feel to it, I was picking it up and putting down quite a lot. I just wasn't happy with it and to be honest I'm not ecstatic about all I've written here but I think it shows what I'm trying to say. I'm sorry if you're offended by anything in this chapter or any chapter but I wanted to show that the world of Shinobi doesn't follow our rules and neither does Kaneki. Sure he will have a few of our worlds morals left but he will be no saint. That said I would never do some of the things I write, I hope I have a better moral compass than that. Amyway I hope you enjoy, leave a review don't burn me at the stake and I will update as soon as I can. Arrevidici.**


	7. Chapter 7

Hot damn I'm finally going to the academy. After almost a year of training and preparing I finally put my name down as a member of the Kumogakure ninja forces. Granted I had already been pegged as a ninja since forever and I'm not officially a ninja until I graduate but it's still a good feeling. I've woken up on my first day of the academy and stand before the small mirror in my bathroom. Normally I'm not one for making myself look 'cool' but all ninja need their own style so I may as well start now. I'm standing in my pyjamas with my long tawny blond hair all over the place and I don't really cut the imposing ninja figure that I need to have. First off I take out a kunai and move it to my hair. As I'm about to cut it my grandma opens the door and walks in. She looks from me, to the kunai, to me, then to the sky and whispers "This is my retirement? Eh, could be worse." She walks over to me and snatches the kunai from my hand and whacks me on the head. "Stupid Kaneki, I will cut your hair for you. You're not starting the academy looking like a street urchin."

She pulls out some scissors and carefully cuts my hair. Honestly it feels more like she's pruning me like a plant rather than cutting hair but she does a better job than I would have. In the end she leaves me with short spiky hair like you would find on any normal kid of 5 or 6. Honestly I'm a little disappointed, I was expecting luscious locks and bangs and rainbow coloured hair but really it doesn't matter too much. It makes infiltration a bit easier but my hair is still uncommon in the elemental nations, most people have brown or black. My grandmother and I move to the kitchen where she has lain out 4 different outfits. It's touching to know that she cares about me but I think she was just bored. She certainly has a gleam in her eyes as she holds up the outfits next to me and asks my opinion. I get bored quickly and pick a dark blue t-shirt and black cargo pants with lots of pockets. I like pockets. I then turn to look for a simple hoodie but my grandma presents a cloak for me. I look at it with interest for a moment but an inner voice from a past life snap, "No capes!" so I shake my head and get a black hoodie. I'm not exactly fashionable but I don't care too much. Grandma smiles at me and we head towards the academy picking up onigiri for breakfast on the way.

We talk about non important things then we arrive in the foyer of the academy. The entire complex is built into one of the mountains and well fortified. I look around and see a group of around 30 kids or so. In general about half won't make it ten will remain genin, three or four for chuunin and maybe a jounin or two. I cast a gaze around and quickly ascertain that the only other people who have had any previous training are the few clan kids in the mix. Four instructors walk up and all the adults file away with two of them while the others regard us. I don't pay much attention to them, they're both male, mid hight, a few scars, chakra levels about what I would guess is chuunin level. They finish the inspection and then the shorter one gives us a smile, "Alright kids welcome to the first day of the academy. We're going to move to the training area and assess your fitness then do a little test ok? Don't worry, the tests are just for our information." I don't like him, he sounds to friendly to be a real ninja and he speaks with a slightly patronising tone. We all follow him anyway like ducklings while his partner takes up the rear.

We emerge in a large room with targets, dummies, padded floors and all sorts of other things you would expect in a training room. He leads us over to the open area near the targets then lines us up on the wall. His partner steps us and barks out, "Alright listen well. I will blow my whistle and you will run from here to the other side of the room and back as fast as you can." You can already see the faces of the children light up at the mention of a race. "You are not permitted to touch each other at anytime. When you make it back the 3 slowest will be eliminated until we have 5 left. You will run each time I blow my whistle and I warn you, I will not give you regular breaks." He eyes us all once more. "This is a competition and as future Kumo shinobi we expect you to WIN. Are you ready?" The kids around me let out excited little shouts as they try and inch off the wall without the instructor noticing. I'm doing it too, a good shinobi always cheats, but I am doing it less obviously therefor I'm better. Maybe I am actually childish? I'm interrupted from my reflection as he blows the whistle and all hell breaks loose.

The moment the whistle is blown everyone runs off as fast as they can. It's immediately obvious that the clan kids are much better trained as they run along with more grace and precision but some kids make up for it with sheer zealoutry and energy. Me? I'm jogging along at the back, keeping ahed of 3 people. I learnt a while ago that this kind of test isn't a speed test, it's an endurance test. So there we are running along when we reach the wall to turn around. As the leaders start turning around they get in the way of each other and start bumping each other. The shrill whistle of the instructor makes us all turn and he yells at us from the other side of the room 100 meters away, "This is your only warning, touch someone and you are instantly disqualified. Be aware of your surroundings like a good shinobi." That could be a problem. This means every time we reach a wall there will be a big congestion to touch it without touching anyone else. This could be more fun than I thought. As I weave my way to touch the wall I spy one of the clan kids moving past so I surreptitiously reach out my foot and trip a girl next to me into him. **Whistle** "Ria Satuotski you're disqualified." Awww that doesn't get the clan kid too? Bloody biased ref. Well she touched him so I guess that's alright. I decide to keep abreast of 5 kids instead of 3 in case they bump each other. All up 2 kids were eliminated at the first turn, one because of me the other because he turned around to fast and smacked into another girl. He hit her pretty hard but kept going which is slightly impressive, maybe I should keep an eye on her. The group arrives spread over 7 seconds and the refs take out the required children. I look around to see who is tired. Unsurprisingly I'm the least winded with the clan kids out front in various states from flushed to heavy breathing. The civilians are all panting a little but seem to be doing well.

The instructor gives us a minutes pause, more than enough for me and the clan kids apparently and blows his whistle. Again I stick to the back while all the civilian kids run off. Surprisingly the clan kids hold back and even more surprisingly one of the civilian kids sidles up to me. I look to my side at him and raise an eyebrow. He was one of the kids who ran off first last time and actually made it back first. At least he has the smarts to cotton on pretty quickly. He puffs out between breaths, "Hey my names Masamoto Ieyasu, what's yours?" He has a badass name. I want his name. Sure Kaneki Kazama sounds fine but which sounds cooler, Hello my name is Kaneki Kazama you killed my father prepare to die or Hello my name is Masamoto Ieyasu you killed my father prepare to die? Obviously the answer is Inigo Montoya but thats neither here nor there. I pull myself off of my nostalgic tangent to reply, "Kaneki Kazama, save your breath if you want to make it to the final five. You don't look built for stamina." He frowns for a moment then smiles. "I think we will be good friends. Hopefully you won't be too disappointed when I win this race. You're hardly built for endurance either short stuff." I twitch. I am barely 2 centimetres shorter than him and he's calling me short stuff? You're going down fool. "Well we'll see who is still standing at the end of the race won't we?" He grins at me then touches the wall and turns around leaving me behind. I scowl and speed up, completely confirming that my body is somehow making me childish.

The race continues with no more bumping into each other and the pauses gradually getting shorter. It interests me to watch the already eliminated kids on the sidelines cheering on some of the others while others pout until they join in on the excitement. I can see the annoying kid ahead of me leading the pack, a slightly impressive achievement, which annoys me for no good reason. We are down to 10 people and were just sent off after a 20 second pause. I move my way up easily to be in the centre of the pack Masamoto a few meters in front with 4 people behind me. This is how I see one of the clan students moving over to trip Masamoto. Now I can't object to the plan because I have done it too but I move myself in the way for several reasons. 1) He broadcasted so obviously he needs to learn he's an idiot. 2) It would be more worthwhile tripping a more trained other trainee. Masamoto is in front by force of will not training. Heck I'm probably the best target to trip because I'm only flushed and barely panting. 3) The dumb kid challenged me and I won't let that lie. After my foolproof justification I look over at the kid. He glances at me with a disgruntled look, correctly realising I blocked him and know what he tried. I stick my tongue out at him (I used to be so mature) then look at a kid on his left and widen my eyes. He takes the bait and looks the other way. Quick as a flash I step on his foot and trip him up. I watch his face run through emotions and wish someone was filming it with a slow motion camera as he goes from pain to indignation to anger to surprise when he realises he is falling to a sort of pouting whine that he is falling then fear as he face plants. Ahh that was glorious. As an added bonus a girl behind him is tripped by his falling body that she was about to move around and they are both eliminated for touching each other. While not as impressive as the boys emotional face changes she went from surprise to an impressive glare at me to resignation as she fell over. I knew this would be amusing! As we finally reach the wall and 3 are eliminated it stands with me, Masamoto and 3 clan bearing students one boy and 2 girls. The instructors don't indicate for anyone to stop so I catch my breath a bit. The clans in Kumo are not as interesting as other countries. Kumo does not have the luxury of many bloodline limits like Kiri or Konoha, not anymore, as we exiled a clan with a duojutsu and the storm release bloodline has become so diluted that one person in 3 generations is lucky to receive it. Instead the clans generally specialise in weaponry or have some sort of special Jutsu. I know that the girl left here is part of the Fuu clan that specialises in genjutsu for example.

We all are caught a little off guard when the whistle blows again but we start running anyway. Everyone keeps about the same pace at fast jogging but not full out running. We hear the patronising instructor say, "These are the students that you need to observe, learn from and then surpass. They will now continue running as normal but they will be eliminated if they arrive 2 seconds after the person before them. It has now also become a test of speed and endurance." After hearing those words all of us tense and kick up our speed. It's instantly apparent that the girl from the genjutsu clan, I didn't bother get her name, doesn't have the speed to keep up with us. We start to pull away from her and when we arrive back at the start she arrives 3 seconds after me. She sighs and moves off to the side. The whistle sounds again and we're all off. I see that although my training with Saki has improved my endurance I will not be able to keep up with the clan students for a long time. On the flip side I can see that I could definitely be faster than them at the cost of my speed. I ponder over this as I notice that Masamoto is probably in the same boat as me. We arrive back at the start and I quickly whisper to him, "Keep quiet, neither of us has the capacity to beat those two in endurance so I say we beat them in speed. If we go sufficiently faster than them we can make it a competition between the two of us. I just need you to go fast enough to not let them be included." I know I can outpace those two by at least 3 seconds but the issue is the kid could bridge the time between us if he's not with me. He eyes me for a moment, "Sure, make sure you keep up." When the whistle blows the two of us instantly sprint off leaving behind the 2 clan kids who were settling into a running pace. Before the two react we have gained a decent lead. When we reach the wall I touch it then mentally count down until the others reach it. About two seconds, it's going to be close. I pant to Masamoto "Faster." He nods and pours on the speed with me. We rocket down the final stretch to the end and slam into the wall gasping for air. The two larger boys arrive a few seconds later and turn to the barky instructor who gives a grim smile and shakes his head at them. Our ploy worked!

I turn to him and he smiles at me. "Good plan Kaneki-san." I shake my head, "Just call me Kaneki, we're friends now right? That's what friends-" **Whistle** I bolt off. There's a grin on my face as he curses and runs after me. He makes it back within the time limit and he pouts at me. "That wasn't very nice Kaneki. You shouldn't-" **Whistle** He bolts off but I go with him. We finish at the same time and I smile at him. "You didn't honestly think I would fall for my own trick did you?" He grins. "Worth a shot." The other students who are listening to our exchanges are cheering us on, with most of them cheering for Masamoto. We continue until the instructor gets bored and just starts blowing the whistle before we even get back so we get no breaks. Eventually Saki's training pays off and Masamoto sinks to the ground next to me after coming in a second late. We are both red and sweating as the instructors come up with the other students. The students crowd around us congratulating me on the win and commiserating with Masamoto. At the same time though I can see some of the looks of jealousy on their faces, especially those of the clan raised children. Arrogance is such an ugly look and one of the two boys we beat at the end has a look on his face similar to a cheesed off bull with a stick up its butt. Meh, I hope he's not important.

The instructor lets us eat lunch then leads us too a classroom where we all filed in and took up seats Masamoto and I had hung back so the only seats left where at the back. Ugh the anime main character seat. I can't figure out if this world follows real or anime logic and I'm starting to think I never will. We sit down and the teacher calls our attention. He explains that in our classes we will be having endurance and speed competitions like that once a month. He outlined the class structure which I sorta blanked out on. Basically we arrive do all the theory and stuff in the mornings then do the physical in the afternoon. He explained about us doing history, maths and other stuff in theory but I can almost guarantee I will sleep through those. In my knowledge that I glean from his little examples, history = propoganda, maths = baby physics for babies, literature = learning how to write and how to use coded messages. Ok the coded messages sounded cool but the only interesting sounding lessons were the ones on chakra theory and we don't start that until at least next year. At least the physical portion will be filled with kunai and shuriken work as well so that's nice. When Mr Patronising (whose name was mentioned multiple times but was suplanted by my nickname) handed out the test paper I slowly emerged from my semi nap and looked through it. As I thought it's got questions from each of the subjects he mentioned even a little one on what chakra is. I make my way through colouring in the little boxes for the multiple choice questions. It was interesting that we were only learning to write at age 7 which was the age of my classmates.

Maths was too easy, the code breaking was fun but only a cesarian cipher and a few easy anagrams. The history was spotty for me, I do pretty well on recent history but not great. When we all hand in our tests the teacher stacks them on his desk and allows us to leave. I glance at the clock behind him and realise it's already 6 o'clock. Although most of the classrooms are underground and therefor don't have windows the ventilation and heating is so good that it's easy to forget. You can barely here the ventilation and I haven't seen a single heater! Wait. Inside a mountain and it's warm. They wouldn't build a hidden village on top of volcanoes would they? Shinobi aren't that crazy right? Stupid question, I'll just hope it stays dormant. I turn to my new friend and say, "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow. Good race." Then I walk towards home. I hear silence for a moment then he runs up behind me. "Baka you can't just run off like that! Come play with us!" I turn and look at his expectant face. I see the other kids have already started up a game of tag. I contemplate for a moment. Head to training fields and practice for a few hours or play with new classmates. Become a better ninja or play lighthearted game with children. Become super cool ninja man or play a game I can play any time... "Nah I'm going to train, see ya tomorrow."

His little face looks sad for a moment before he turns around and starts playing with them. I on the other hand head off to train and hope Saki will turn up. So begins my cycle of training at the academy. Arrive in the morning and sleep my way through the theory lessons, go to lunch and sometimes join their games but most time read my latest book, go to the gymnasium to exercise and practice the different ninja skills, then head to the training grounds for more exercise while hoping Saki turns up then turn in for bed at night. This boring pattern continues for 2 weeks before I'm bored and want to do something else. Don't get me wrong, learning how to use shuriken, kunai and chakra is really cool but the problem is 95% of my time in the theory rooms are wasted. I already know far too much and it kills me to waste half a day each day for the next 2 or 3 years.

My solution to crushing boredom is handed to me by one of the upper classes. Mr Patronising (I think his name is Yamada but who cares) decides to show us the the big 3 jutsus. I quickly wake up to watch him and extend my senses to him. I small frown appears on my face as I realise because I sit at the back of the room I can't reach him. How pathetic is that? I can't even sense someone across the room from me. I stretch my range as far as I can and I learn from focusing on a single place I can extend my range 3 or 4 times the distance. So from my initial distance of about a meter and a half (if I'm being generous) I stretch the 5 meters between me and my teacher so I can sense what the techniques feel like. What I'm left with annoys and disgusts me. From what I can feel the Henge technique is a sort of blanket over the body and wouldn't fool anybody with chakra sensing who knew the person beforehand. I can easily feel the chakra signature of Mr Patronising under it. The Kawirami is more interesting. I feel the moment he switches places with something but can't follow where he went. I have to search but I find the signature of sensei just outside the corridor. Then something _weird_ happens. I feel his original chakra form another copy of himself that feels practically the same. Unless I missed something and people in this universe reproduce asexually through osmosis then whatever he did should be impossible. Weird new Mr Patronising walks through the open door and waves at us. I narrow my eyes and take a good look at him. He's the kind of teacher who loves the sound of his voice so he wouldn't be content with just waving at us, he would have some 'benevolent wisdom' to bestow on us. Now I'm observing more he seems to be insubstantial and he didn't touch the door...

I face palm. "You're a clone aren't you?" The clone smiles at me and the first copy walks around the door and closes it.

"That's right, good job for picking up on that." Urgh, I'm not sure if that was a real compliment but his tone of voice is SO annoying. Maybe he just speaks like that? Probably why I've never seen him with a woman. He gives us a small information session on the Basic Three then moves on to another topic. I on the other hand stopped listening long ago and started contemplating. I think I know what I can do in my theory lessons.

I start by stretching my chakra sense out as far as I can. Not in my specific searching but in a radius. The best way I could describe it is like I'm in a room full of smoke and I have the choice of an open lantern to light the area around me or shuttering it to make a focused light reach further through the smoke. So I open up my senses and reach out to see how far I can currently reach. This leads me to a grand total of the other side of Masamoto who is sitting next to me and just reaching past the kid sitting in front of me. Great. I see if I can extend the range at all. I look inside myself using one of the meditation techniques Saki taught me and pull some of my quite large spiritual chakra. As usual I can't push any outside my body but when I start channeling it into my brain (which feels really weird - ever lightly electrocuted yourself and felt your arm numbing and jumping around? That's what my brain felt like) I feel it enhancing my chakra sensing. Sort of like pouring oil on a fire the range of my sensing massively grows until it's filling the classroom and spilling over into other areas but I quickly stop when I notice the teacher sharp look in my direction. Lesson learned more chakra to ability equals more range but I don't want to be funnelling chakra to my sensing at all times. I need this to be a natural ability that stays on without my focus. I do feel as if my range has expanded though. Maybe 3 or 4 centimetres more? I don't know if this ability has limits, if I exercise it like a muscle or stretch it. Chakra sensing is not a very common ability although it's damn useful.

I 'shutter' my chakra sense which lets me reach further but robs me of my spatial awareness. Sure I have my natural spatial awareness to help me but imagine if you suddenly couldn't hear anything around you except something far away? I have grown dependant on my new sense and it is strange to use it like this. Undaunted I continue my experimentation with my chakra sense. I lock in on each person feeling the slight differences in each persons chakra. I remember reading that sometimes you can read someones emotions in their chakra? That's a little advanced for me but I feel something like boredom from a bunch of the children in the class. It occurs to me that before I was able to sense the teacher outside the class. I stretch my sense outside into the corridor but I notice a slight weakening of my sense. A little less range after passing through a wall that I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it. Ok so I can sense through walls but it does affect it a little. I reach my sense upwards into the classroom above us. Feeling around blindly I come across two chakra signatures close to each other. My sense only shows where people are so I can sense there are 2 people but nothing else. Hey I recognise that as the cool instructors chakra! He seems quite agitated but I don't feel anything negative from either of the signatures and there's no alarms going off. The two are really close to each other almost as if they're... Ohhhh. Good on you Mr Cool sensei! Does it make me a pervert sensing them like this? Sure I can't see anything and I'm not sure if they're doing the dirty but I'm pretty sure of it. I retract my sense anyway focusing to feel the difference after not sensing through the wall and I can feel it barely. They probably shouldn't be doing that in a school zone though. I resolve to continue practicing my chakra sensing when I have the time. Like in these boring theory lessons.

After my first foray into chakra sensing I started strengthening my range by boosting it with chakra and then letting it settle. I continue my new training schedule until I learn something quite interesting about chakra sensing, chakra itself and chakra clones.

 **A/N: I'm doing some traveling quite soon so I got this one out quick before I left. I may not be able to upload anything for about a week or 2 depending on if there's wifi where I'm going. Shouldn't be a problem though and I will write more in my free time so I can upload more when I can. Tell me if you like what's going on or if the pace annoys you. I'm trying to explain a whole bunch of concepts the way I see them and forgive me if it might be a little slow but I will be time skipping most of the academy soon. Review but please no flames and I hope you have a good week. :D**


	8. Chapter 8

The first thing you need to know about clones is they suck. I'm talking about the regular standard issue illusory clone you are taught in the academy. They are in my opinion and many others opinion one of the most useless wastes of chakra you will ever learn. That's not to say clones suck. Any sort of fake body that once punched explodes into water, smoke or even lightning is definitely cool. The problem with the basic clone is that it's only good for a really basic distraction. A distraction of "look at the not talking, unable to touch anything, non solid me that is definitely not a clone!" sort of distraction. Complete garbage versus professionals but useful when against bandits and for wrapping a kawirami in to hold someones attention for a bit longer. The reason I'm ranting about the useless jutsu for useless people is it's super effective on me. I rely less on my sight to see where people are now and more on my chakra sense now that I've got it's passive range up to about 5 meters. So when someone (potentially by the name of Saki) decides to pull a prank on me by using a clone I have no idea which one is a clone or not.

There I was happily getting my ass kicked in a fight with a taijutsu specialist when she creates a clone. So instead of trading blows with one crazy teacher I have a real teacher and something that feels like a real teacher dancing around me. I was so distracted the first time she did it that I let an easy hit through and was knocked to the ground. After shaking off the shock I look between my grinning sensei and her replica trying to figure out which is which. I realise quickly the one on the right is not bending the grass beneath her so I know it is the clone. I explore the two more thoroughly with my sense. They feel the same to me because the UJUP(Useless jutsu for useless people) is just a chakra construct made into the same body shape. I am interrupted from my musing by a well toned leg sweeping out my legs and knocking me to the ground. Intrigued by her clones I call time out and ask "Sensei how many clone jutsu's can you use?"

"Well it depends on the clone I can personally hold 4 mud clones because it's my affinity-"

"I mean can you show me the different sorts? My chakra sensing is acting strange and I would like to be able to identify them."

She gives me a lighthearted glare for interrupting her but shrugs and runs through a bunch of hand signs. After a few seconds there are 3 clones standing next to her. One of them is obviously the UJUP because I'm observing with my eyes while the other two are more realistic. I reach out my chakra sense and it's practically the opposite. I can clearly feel the slow solid earth chakra and the more jumpy erratic lightning chakra in the other two. It's quite easy to sense that they are fakes so I should be able to identify the clones real shinobi use but the moment someone breaks out the UJUP I'm in more trouble. I need to get a look at the shadow clone because that's supposed to be more like a real body. I should also try and find a way to recognise UJUPs but at the moment it's not readily apparent.

So now I have another thing to work on - my chakra sensing. I'm actually pleased by this as I can probably work on it during our boring theory lessons and do some more research on clones in my spare time. I turn to sensei and ask, "Can I try sparing your 3 clones instead of you? It would be useful for experience." She gives me a calculating look.

"Brat there are a few problems with what you just asked for. The only solid clone you can really fight is my earth clone the lightning clone explodes after a good hit and the illusory clone is just that, illusory. The next problem is you need to expand your taijutsu to training versus multiple people before you can dive into it. At the moment I have been running you through advanced academy taijutsu but you will need to choose a stile that fits you. Finally fighting against a persons clones are much easier than the real thing because they don't have chakra enhanced abilities seeing as they are chakra constructs and they only fight on instinct with no extended strategy."

"Could you teach me a taijutsu style? You're supposed to specialise in that so that would help right?"

"Sure kid we could go pick out a style right now if you wanted. I was leaving it so you could maybe choose it once you know more about your fighting style. Most people only decide after they have been genin for a while sometimes they even learn it after reaching chuunin."

"Yes I would like to learn one now. I'm pretty sure I know what sort of style I would like to learn."

Saki nods and motions for me to follow her. As we walk she asks little questions about what I think I want; fluid or rigid - rigid, strong hits or many - strong, fast moving or solid unmoving - fast. At that she pauses for a moment and looks at me. I can see a slight smile on her lips as we enter the Kumo ninja library and pass into the section reserved for taijutsu. She tells me to wait then comes back holding 4 different scrolls. "Alright I have picked out 4 styles that follow what you described that I think will work well for you. Not many people try such a strange combination of characteristics, in fact most would use a weapon, do you think you want a weapons form?" I see that she is holding back a little insecurity at her student spurning taijutsu, the skill she has dedicated her life to.

"No thankyou sensei. Although a weapon could be useful it stops me from using hand seals and one can be disarmed." A small sigh of relief as she sets out the 4 scrolls. Seeing as neither Saki nor I come from a clan that develops their own forms we have to choose from one of the styles Kumo has recorded over time. Fortunately Kumo has a good reputation(everyone hates us for it) of stealing things from other villages be it techniques, bloodlines and even jinchurikis. So in front of me I see 2 scrolls originating from Iwa, 1 from Kumo and the last with no place of origin. I quickly discard the two from Iwa primarily because they rely on physical strength and I am growing up to be considered a wiry person not a big hulking person who can brute strength their way through their fights. So I'm left reading through the one from Kumo and the nationless one. I'm surprised to read that it reminds me alot of Saki's fighting stile and it warms up my rational heart that she offers it to me. That said the other option is _interesting_. It focuses on using hands elbow and knees to cripple your opponent whereas Saki's is all about footwork. I glance up at her and she looks at me impassively.

"Do you think we could try these two out and then I decide? Or maybe try to combine the two somehow."

She smiles a moment and looks at the two. After reading through the villageless croll she grimaces and says, "Sorry kid I don't see these two mixing well. I guess some parts could mix with the other but the fundamentals of each are different and you would end up with a conflicting style." I nod and we head out with the 2 scrolls. She tells me to read over them and we'll start practising them in a few days time after she comes back from a mission. I wave her off and start my way to another day at the academy.

I enter the hallway for the school and wait for the person on the other side of the solid door to let me through. Our school really is well guarded with kill-zones and dead-ends and all sorts of tricks to stop invaders or infiltrators pulling an Anakin and killing the younglings. I busy myself with imagining how I would siege it as I make my way into class 3 minutes late and take my seat next to Masa. We have become good friends over the past 2 weeks or so and he's used to me turning up late then falling asleep as I'm trying to do now. Unfortunately it's Mr Cool today and although he has a really sick pair of sunglasses (we are underground and they would hinder you in a fight but damn they look good) he demands respect from us and doesn't let us get away with too much.

"So nice of you to join us. We were just going over our homework for yesterday, how about you read us out what you did?" Go piss up a rope Mr Cool. I just got back from being knocked up more than often with my sensei and having to make a difficult life changing decision and now he wants me to read out my homework. To make matters worse this is one of the times I didn't do my homework. Saki is finding it hard to get free time so when she got back last night I stayed out with her practicing and got up early to train with her again. Apparently she's working on some important dispute between a minor village and ours. All I know is I've been seeing less of her so I'm in a bit of a bad mood. I stand up and look at Mr Cool.

"Could you please remind me which homework you're talking about?" Not exactly insubordination but it does send the 'piss off' vibe. Either he didn't notice or he's a dick. He smiles and says, "I assigned the class to each research a weapon and it's history of usage. You were all supposed to decide on weapons together so you wouldn't have duplicates." Ok yeah he's a dick and he got the piss off vibe. Well damn I didn't talk to the others so I don't know what weapon they chose. There's no way I will admit I didn't do the homework, he has thrown down a gauntlet to see what I can do to get out of my situation. Honestly it's clever and trains your common sense so good job Mr Cool but did you have to do it to me? I wrack my brains for an obscure weapon someone else wouldn't have chosen but I know enough about. Swords, kunai and shuriken are obviously out but what else can I do. Ninchucks - to common, caltrops - I don't know them, ninja wire - probably done but something I should research later anyway. Hmm I could always be metaphorical about it. Someone probably did taijutsu but… Oh thats perfect. Obscure yet I know enough about them too get away with it. I reach into my bag and pull out a piece of paper with writing on it and pretend to read it while making it up off the top of my head.

"Jinchuriki, also known as demon hosts or human sacrifices are considered to be the most dangerous weapons that exist in the shinobi world." The room has gone quite. The kids are looking at me in shock and the teacher is looking slightly nervous, jinchuriki are considered village secrets after all. I blunder on, "They have existed since long before the start of the hidden villages being around during the warring clan period but little is known about their history." I am basically cobbling together what I know from the show and making it sound informative. "They were formed when a person sealed one of the nine tailed beasts into their body which granted the host incredible power. Little is known about this process but they are known to have side effects on their hosts. The beasts were collected together by Hashirama Senju the first Hokage then evenly distributed to the villages in what he wished to be a sign of peace but have since become causes of tension and conflict between the villages." Silence reigns in the classroom. I sit down and Mr Cool continues the lesson after a pause while I contemplate what I just did. I sounded like a fucking prick just then. Bringing out information on the Jinchuriki? Almost revealing I know more information than I should, most people know practically nothing about jinchuriki and I give a little summary of them? At least it gives the image of me being knowledgeable and if anyone tries to make a fool of me they know I won't pull my punches. Still I don't want to give away information like that for trivial confrontations, I must be more out of it then I thought.

As the teacher drones on I stretch out my sensing and perform my normal exercises. I have refined just mucking about to a sort of training regime. I stretch my search as far as it goes holding it until I feel some strain then retreat it back and keep watch of my surroundings then I repeat in a different direction all the while doing real difficult maths problems. The way I see it there are 3 things I can work on in class and 1 more aspect out of class that I need to improve in my sensing. They are: gaining longer range for both individual search and passive, presence of mind to be able to use it without focusing on it, identifying different people with it and while out of class working on my speed of tracking, identifying and following moving adversaries. I had decided that I hate clones and I never want to be beaten by them again. They are such integral parts of a shinobi's arsenal that if I can identify the real one out of 10 clones it's a waste of their chakra and a chance to win quickly. Also because it always irritated me watching or reading fight scenes where someone gets devastated by a persons ultimate attack then poof, sorry, that was just another clone.

We finally finish the boring lessons after I have thoroughly stretched out my sense and make our way to the gymnasium. A different teacher I haven't seen before steps up. I observe her for a moment. Ok, I dub thee Ms Hawk. Honestly I'm terrible with names so my nicknames are just going to have to cut it. She looks over us like her namesake and gives me a small glare like she can sense her nickname. She introduces herself and tells us she will be our taijutsu instructor for while we are at the academy. Reevaluating her I can't see the muscle groups or stance of what I identify as a taijutsu specialist so I will just keep going back to Saki if I want training. She announces we will all be doing some non lethal sparring to see what we already know and to establish a structure of who is more advanced or not. Ouch way to make the kids hate each other. Put a target on the best and force the worst to do better. It should work but not conducive to making friends.

After a few bouts of unknowns I'm matched up first round with one of the clan kids. He didn't make it in our little running game so I eye him down and take in his stance. He is in quite an aggressive stance, looking ready to pounce on me and he looks in decent shape. I wait for the instructor to say go and here him say just loud enough for the students but not instructors to hear, "You may think you're good but I'll put you in your place." I give him a little smile then slide into the basic academy stance one leg forward with a leg behind in an L shape. The instructor calls start and the kid waits a moment then starts zigzagging towards me. I spread my weight evenly and raise on to the ball of my back foot. He finally stops his demented little dance and starts rushing towards me. He's moving like a freight train with a good momentum built up. As he reaches me with arms stretched out to grab me if I try stepping to the side I look him right in the eyes. Fool. Pivoting off my tensed back leg I catch him in the jaw with a quick front kick lifting him up a bit and slowing his momentum to almost nothing. Then with a little chakra enhanced power I place my front foot down and swing my other leg around catching him in the side throwing him out of our sparring ring.

There is a beat of silence as everyone digests the speed and efficiency of which I dispatched the clan kid. I look around for a moment and decide, I'm a kid I may as well act like one while I can get away with it. "If this is all the 'superior' clans can produce then I think I will be bored for the rest of school. I want to fight someone with enough brain cells to not just run at me head first like an animal." Most of the faces shift from impressed to annoyed as they process my challenge. I turn and see Masamoto and watch his smile grow wider with the challenge. He nods his head at me and I shoot a smile back. Looks like someone has the spirit to make this interesting. Ms Hawk steps up after checking over the kid.

"Well he will be fine. Kazama was it? You will need to spar again so I can see how good you actually are." I shrug not really caring. Honestly all I expect to pick up from this is a measuring stick to see how good I am and maybe pick up some tricks from new fighting styles even though Saki should be able to teach me all I need. They put me up against a normal kid much to Masa's disappointment and I make sure not to wipe them out immediately as I step through the academy form showing off what I can do. The teachers write down some notes than observe the other students. Once we finish they lead us through endurance games then let us go. I walk out of the school content, I have a set of goals to work on for my taijutsu and my sensing so I just need to work on those and I should become a good shinobi. Should be pretty simple.

 **A/N: Yo I'm back. For those of you who haven't had a holiday in Europe I would find it difficult to recommend a specific country. I would advise renting a car and just traveling around, there is so much to see. Anyway I'm back and will start writing again, hopefully more frequently, I hope I can write each chapter in one sitting or you will keep getting emotional jumps of my character. I'm an emotional guy and my character changes with it so I'm sorry if it's a bit weird but it's a way for me to work through some thoughts and entertain you so win win right? As always leave a review, don't spit roast me and have a great day :D**


	9. Chapter 9

I feel myself getting a little excited. After spending 3 years ignoring school and training myself I finally can complete my genin exam and get into real missions for experience and be allowed more intensive training specifically in elemental manipulation. At the same time I am worried about the upcoming exam. Not for myself of course, I could have passed it after 3 months here, I'm worried about Masamoto. In all my time at school he is the only person I would consider a friend. Sure I talked with some others and they weren't too bad but having to become friends with people so much younger than my mental self is annoying and I couldn't bring myself to do it. Masamoto was the only exception to that rule because although he has all the innocence of a child, who is coincidently being turned into a killing machine, he also has a well developed moral code that he got from his parents before they died. So that's why I consider him my only friend, that and we empathised with each other over the loss of our parents. For him he carries the pain with him and lets it motivate him to new heights. I'm much less healthy, it's just another scar on my psyche after losing an entire world and way of life. It motivates me not to lose people close to me but it isn't something that wakes me up at night. After all the loss I've already gone through I'm fiercely possessive of my current friends and possessions but if I lose them… they slide off me like water on oilskin.

I look around the class and try to put together who I should watch out for and who would be useful to keep in contact with. I'm not looking for teams because the structure in Kumo is quite different from the one used in Naruto. Instead of a jounin with 3 genin we have 1 Jounin assigned as commander of 10 genin with 2 chuunin aides. Teamwork isn't as promoted in Kumo, we prefer manoeuvring squadrons of interchangeable ninja, although it may not perform as efficiently as the tailored Konoha groups or the lone wolf death monsters of Kiri our squadrons are alot nicer to the logistics division. To be honest our class isn't very interesting. Some kids have real drive to become strong ninja but of everyone in our class I would expect just Masamoto and I to make it to Jounin. The clan children have the skills to do it but not enough drive or enthusiasm. Maybe once they've tasted the bitter reality of shinobi life they will be spurned on to something better but for the moment they're just people for me to practice my skills on.

The instructors are calling us through to do the test one at a time. Each kid comes out the other side so we don't get a chance to talk with them or know if they passed. I sit and chat a little with Masa not really paying attention until my name, which comes before his in the alphabet, is called. I stand to go when he catches my arm. I turn and there is a more serious look on his face. I raise an eyebrow and ask, "What?"

My playful tone washes over him and he seriously replies, "In all our times we've been at the academy you've been a good…" I stare at him with a disbelieving look, "fine- an alright friend and I know you can pass that test in there if you try. I also know that you don't pay much attention which sometimes trips you up, like that time with the ice cream cone." I grimace. One time in a taijutsu bout one of the younger classes was watching us to pick up notes on how to spar. One of the kids I noticed was eating an icecream which completely floored me as it's difficult to get ice cream in our society and after all these years being deprived of its sugary goodness my childish body overrode my mental discipline with the urge I WANT IT. I stopped paying attention to the fight and reached out to try and take it, if you're curious it was banana flavoured, when the person I was sparring swept my feet from under me. A combination of me being off balance and stretched out made me fall and I watched in horror as my hand flailed out and _knocked the cone out of the kids hand and onto the floor._ I lay prone for a moment then stood up, the goeey remains of the icecream coating my left hand. I looked up and stared in the eyes of my opponent who stood unbelieving that he got a hit in on me. I looked at him and narrowed my eyes. I hold my hand up to get him to see the icecream coating it and whisper, "Is this what you wanted." He is about to respond when I launch myself at him and brutally deck him.

I'm pulled out of my revery by Masa. "You need to stop zoning out Kaneki." I sheepishly grin at him and nod. "Anyway as I was saying you need to focus in their so you can graduate with me. We're going to watch each others backs until the end. Who else is going to deal with my paper work when I'm the Raikage?" He gives me a toothy grin showing off a chipped tooth he got from me when I tripped him into a steel beam. He has the innocent childish dream of one day becoming Raikage. I mentally sigh, it would be nice if life was that simple but two practically unconnected shinobi like me and Masamoto would need a miracle to be chosen as Raikage. Then I scowl at him. "Just because I help you with your homework doesn't mean I will do your paperwork for you. Sometimes I think you only keep me around so you don't fail maths." It's his turn to grin sheepishly. I grin at him and turn towards the door. "Worry not little Masamoto I shall pass this test and go on to be a ninja. I will train for the year until you pass because you're too stupid to pass the written test this year." A tick mark appears on his face as he shakes his hand at me, "Just do the damn test!"

I'm chuckling as I enter the will lit examination room but it drops off as I put on a professional face. The person behind the desk I don't recognise. Sadly Mr Cool was called to do some other missions last year and got killed in a fight against some bandits with 2 ninja. It wasn't announced but I found out about it. It pays to have informants and after all the work I've done for our company it led to me knowing people in the logistics and accounting divisions of the KCO. By now if I want to find out something I've got a whole bunch of people who don't see an issue telling me about a file they saw at the top of their pile. I quite enjoy knowing things especially when it prepares me for occurrences such as our cool teacher disappearing and everyone curious where he went. It spread my influence even more when people found out I could get them information for the right price. It also shook up some of the students when they found out we only get back most of out teacher. His head was taken by the escaping bandits to collect his bounty. The new guy has lilac hair and has a patient personality that you would think is good for a teacher but really just puts the kids to sleep easier. I, consequently, like him.

He smiles at me and runs me through the basic three jutsu. My Kawirami is well executed, same as my henge because I know they are both capable of saving your life and very useful if applied right. My clone is not as good because it will always in my mind be the UJUP and it's flat out weird having a clone that feels exactly like you so I don't practice it very often. Still it's passable and I breeze through the written test. The new sensei smiles at me but doesn't let me leave yet.

"Please take a seat Kaneki, we need to evaluate your psyche as well. We don't want you cracking and going crazy do we?" He gives me a reassuring smile. I am not reassured. First off that is a horrible way to start and alerts me to his intents which will change my questions. Second off I know he will find some sort of psychological issue so I don't want that happening. Finally I know that there were psychological tests in the written test and if the Raikage wanted something more concrete he would ask Saki to test me out. This situation stinks but I don't want to get caught up in it. Instead I smile at him and ask, "Ok what do you need to know?"

"First off what do you think of Kumo?" Ugh the transparency of that question is disgusting. "Well I believe it is a very well developed city that has a good socio/economic standing with a well respected military." Not an opinion merely a statement of facts. Whoever this information is going to I don't want them knowing much. He smiles and takes some notes. "What is your opinion of the justice system and fairness of Kumo's policies?" Umm what? SO that means he's either scouting me for another village or he's… part of a rebellious faction in Kumo? He doesn't seem to know what he's doing very much. "Well I think it is quick and on the whole morally acceptable. It has put us in good stead with our civilians and they seem to be pleased with it." No sign of reaction. I guess he's selling information to another village? This is more common than one would expect. I know several Kumo ninja are deployed in Konoha, Iwa, Suna and neighbouring countries to keep an eye out for prodigies. The ones in Konoha have to work the most because that place puts out a frankly ridiculous amount of prodigies while it's practically impossible to be an agent in Kiri at the moment as they keep purging any people that even might be agents. It's time to end my little interview with this guy and get out. It's probable that Kumo knows about him but lets him stay just because he seems so inept that he mustn't be a very good spy. "I do know that the response time of our ANBU is very quick and that they keep a close eye on suspicious people." I give a sweet smile that seems to unnerve him and he waves for me to go.

As I leave he calls out, "You passed your test Kaneki, heres your hitai-itai." I here something move through the air behind me I move out of the path of the object and look at it before catching it. Sure enough it's the Kumogakure brand. I turn to him and give a real smile then a bow. "Thank you sensei." I look down at the shiny metal on the cloth as I walk out. I quickly inspect it then I wrap it around my right arm. I'll spread some grease on it later so it won't give me away while we're on a mission. I sit down with the other students waiting for assignment to our squads. So far about two thirds of the class have passed. It's a pretty good group of average ninja, the people hidden villages rely on to complete the normal jobs of border patrol, guards and bandit eradication. I sit in the back of the class like normal and recline in my chair as I watch over the examination with my chakra sense. It's in the room next door so it's well within my normal sensing range. I can't get too much information but I can tell when they manipulate chakra into their henges, kawirami and the UJUP. I'm sitting reclining when I notice I can sense a slight difference between the current girl and her clone. I sit up in shock opening my eyes but i forgot I was leaning back in my chair and the sudden movement sends me falling to the ground. With a thud I hit the ground and pick myself up slowly and cast a glance around. Strange faces stare back at me; some filled with calculating looks, the dangerous ones, as they try to figure out what could have startled me while other faces just shocked at my ungraceful display so removed from my normal aloofness and grace while some show… pity? Why pity? I pick myself up and clear my head, it doesn't matter.

I stretch my focused sense to the class to try and understand the phenomenon. Sure enough there are two copies of the girl but one of them feels a little different. Not overtly obvious like an earth or lightening clone but different nonetheless. She dispels her clone and remakes it but this time it feels the same as her. I'm puzzled by this. What felt different before? The way that the chakra moved was… lumpy? It felt uneven I guess. I watch a blonde haired girl walk out a little flushed but with a hitai-itai clenched in her hand and pressed against her chest like a precious heirloom. I make a beeline to her uncaring of the looks I'm getting from the other newly minted genin. I give a smile to the girl and ask, "Hey I'm Kaneki, you're Sarah right?" She turns with a smile then freezes when she sees me a light blush appearing on her cheeks. "Yes, um, I'm Sarah. I know who you are we've been in the same class for nearly 3 years." Hmmm, not sure. No wait, yes, she is rubbish at taijutsu but showed promise in information gathering and tactics. No idea what her last name is though.

"I was wondering if you'd like to talk about how your test went?" I need to find out what happened with her clone. Even a chance of figuring out how to defeat the dastardly UJUP is worth pursuing. She looks down and her blush returns with a vengeance. "Ano, ok Kaneki-san. It's nice to talk to you. You don't talk with many people aside from Masamoto-san so why do you want to talk to me." Damn she's already suspicious. Time to try and remember how to flatter a woman. "Well Sarah-san I never talked to the others because none of them were as interesting as you are. Tell me how you think you did in the exam." I lean in closer to her and I notice her twitching and starting to sweat. How odd. "You think I'm interesting?" She asks sounding a little out of breath. Damn she's skirting around the question. She must know I'm trying to find out something and is redirecting me down other conversation paths. "Of course I think your interesting. You caught my eye in class while we were practicing the Clone jutsu and after I paid more attention." That seems to be the wrong thing to say as she stops sweating and gives me a slightly confused look. "I thought you slept through that class? Not that I was watching you or anything." She rushes the last part and looks away from me. Drat she caught me. I wasn't sleeping exactly but I certainly wasn't paying attention. Damn you Sarah, you're too good at this, this, _socialising_ for me to get the information I need. I think I need to retreat. "Well I usually sleep through those lessons but I paid some attention when you went. Anyway I'll go wait until Masamoto finishes." I get up to leave. Not a clean getaway at all but I need to get out before I'm trapped by a better interrogator.

I get up and turn around to leave suddenly noting the class is practically silent with a large portion of the girls scowling in Sarah's direction. I make to move back to my spot when I hear a whisper behind me. I turn to Sarah, "Sorry did you say something?" Her blush becomes somehow deeper and she starts fiddling with the hem of her skirt. She looks up at me shyly avoiding my eyes, I always make eye contact it allows you to read someone better, then asks "We're all waiting in here for the others. I don't mind if you wait with me." Clever girl. Now if I refuse it can damage my public image even further. Apparently I'm already known not to be very sociable, if I turn her down people will think I'm downright unfriendly which will be hazardous if I need to work with these people in the future. Truly she is a master manipulator. I nod at her then sit back down next to her. I notice, now I'm paying attention, quite a few girls in our class are either glaring at Sarah or have agitated chakra indicative of anger, for what reason I can't fathom.

"So Kaneki-san?" Sarah inquires. I turn to her, "Yes Sarah-san? Just call me Kaneki I don't really bother to much with honorifics." She smiles and nods. "So how do you think you did on the exam Kaneki? Are you concerned who you will be grouped with?" Oh now she's turning it on me? Obviously I will have to trade information about myself to get information from her. I'll just have to try not to give away too much. "Well I know I did well in the physical and written. I think I messed up on the clone jutsu. How was your clone?" Well I'm about as subtle as a vegan in a Mcdonalds but it got us back to the clone. "Your clone? I remember you not being very happy in that class, I messed up on my first attempt and put too much chakra into it but the sensei let me try again." Interesting so the reason it felt strange was because the chakra was too… dense maybe? No the Genjutsus like the UJUP fail if you have too powerful chakra in it, thats why it's one of the only shinobi arts you can overpower. I smile at her and repeat what Saki taught me for the clone jutsu while my mid irons out a theory based on what she told me. Maybe to see if something is a clone I will have to pay attention to the chakra density of them and I will be able to tell the difference. Still that would be hard work to continuously do so it's not a permanent solution to my weakness.

I continue talking to Saki as she makes more clever digs to learn more about me such as, "Where do you live, What's your favourite food/colour and when is your birthday." I have to give the answers to most of the questions because she phrases them in benign ways that hide the true nature of the barbed questions. She may think she can hide her purpose behind blushes and nervous laughs but with the information she's accruing she could attempt an assassination attempt on me easily. I will have to keep an eye on her, the sly girl, I haven't even seen her mask slip although I have noticed her looking away when I make eye contact with her. She's good.

The door open and Masamoto walks out with his Hitai-itai on a sash around his left shoulder to right hip. He grins at me and saunters over to me. Damn fool has a large grin on his face as he walks over, his small ponytail swaying behind him. "Hey Kaneki, looks like you're still stuck with me. You ready to start life as real ninja?" Thank-you for saving me my friend she was bleeding me dry of information, I think to him. How I really respond is, "I've had to wait forever for you to finally get your act together. We can hardly be called real ninja if they let an idiot like you through." I cuff him on the shoulder. Masamoto and I have developed into good friends and he seems to enjoy my somewhat random sense of humour. He puts his arms behind his head and starts heading for the door. "Come Kaneki the world awaits!" He kicks the door open with his booted foot and there's a Jounin standing behind it who has been guarding the exit since we started here. He stands there with his foot still raised in the air. "Masa you know there are people who still have to complete the test after you right? Then we get assigned into squadrons. I swear do you listen to any of the things I explain to you?" He gives me a sheepish grin and sits down next to me. "Sorry Kaneki, who's the girl?" A nightmare my brother, a true nightmare. I smile and gesture at her, "This is Sarah, umm, Sarah I forgot your last name." She gives me a pout and says, "I've been in the same class as both of you since we started here and neither of you knows my name? It's expected of Kaneki because he's the emo loner of our group-" I'm the emo loner? But I have blonde hair! "-but you played with us heaps! I'm Sarah Fuudon, you're Masamoto Ieyasu and he's Kaneki Kagama." She finishes with a pout on her face. "Sorry Sarah I guess I picked up Kaneki's bad luck with names." His grin never slips off his face. I frown at him but shrug.

The door that was still open after Masamoto opened it is filled with the form of the Jounin who was guarding us. "Well that's everyone now. Good evening my name is Gake Hanga and I will be your squadron leader until you die or are promoted. It's nice to meet you."

 ***A/N: Man I thought I would never get this done. Finally we have arrived at the point where the cooler things I've planned start happening. In case you're curious most of the names I use are drawn from people I know but sometimes I just translate some english words into Japanese and use that. Anyway thanks for reading, leave a review, please don't slow roast me and as always have a nice life. :D**


	10. Chapter 10

The moment the jounin entered I started profiling him. I know making assumptions can be dangerous especially in the shinobi life but it can also be useful. Gake Hanga is an older man, for shinobi, looking to be in his mid 40s. He carries a normal amount of light scarring over his exposed skin but most of it is covered by his grey clothes. Dark pants tucked into laceless combat boots all with slight bulges indicating concealed weaponry. His lighter grey shirt is also long sleeved but slightly baggy meaning he probably has more weapons hidden in his sleeves. His hitai-itai is in the traditional headband holding back his spiky hair. He has grey streaked through his dark hair and goatee which finishes my physical ananlysis. I mark his posture, feet splayed for balance indicating a steady presence and the slight slouch accentuates it. His eyes sweep the room steadily taking us in one by one. He gives off an impression of a mountain that has weathered a storm. You can feel the experience he shows off but at the same time I can tell this is probably his form of retirement - teaching the next generation what he knows. He catches my eye as I examine him and I unabashedly hold his gaze then give a respectful nod. I see a little twinge in his eyes that may indicate a smile or perhaps a slight grimace then he passes on to examine the other students. There were 34 students when I first came to the academy and with new additions and many drop outs there are 14, including myself and Masa, new genin. I note the two chuunin level signatures waiting outside one feeling impatient. As well as learning to notice clones I should practice reading the emotions in someones chakra, it will be dead useful. I can sense from our new sensei has strong spiritual energy in his chakra as well as earthen tones which may signify an earth affinity? If so it's a strong one as I never sensed it from Saki. Just another thing I need to practice. My 'To learn list' is starting to get rather long but with the absence of wasting so much time in school I can kick training into overdrive.

"Alright students here's how it will work. You are now a part of Squadron J or as they are generally nicknamed, squadron jellyfish. This is because compared to the other squadrons you are weak, spineless, brainless waste of spaces who don't deserve a better name. Eventually once you prove your worth you will be promoted into one of the real squadrons but for now… you're going to do exactly as I say and maybe half of you will survive to be promoted. In a years time this squadron will have the new students added to it, I hope you don't have to suffer the humiliation of still being in the squad when they arrive. Coincidently here are the 4 recruits who didn't get promoted." At his cue 4 genin rush in with hunched shoulders and stand not looking at anyone while a bunch of the students around me laugh and make rude remarks. I don't say anything because I can feel that 3 of them are at least better than most in this room and the 4th is an obvious plant with high chuunin/low jounin level reserves. Probably looking out for us and recording our mental states. The 2 chuunin who were waiting outside come in then start handing out papers to each person. "These are the 2 chuunin also helping in our squadron. They are handing out details of what training field we use, what training programs you should be doing _at least_ once a day and on the final page you will see information of how payment is delivered for your work like your account number and what banks will give you your money. For now if you have any questions about the papers ask the chuunin, if you have any questions for me it better be good. I'm going to eat lunch so aside from questions enjoy your only day off for a while." With that he gives a wave and disappears in a puff of smoke.

There is something to be said for caring grandmothers. I know with my world travelling-parents lost twice-had to see a man die in front of me mental issues that I am one odd duck but I can still appreciate it when my Grandmother makes her way between the mountains to the academy to celebrate my graduation with me. Masamoto joins us as we wander along having a light lunch of sun dried tomatoes, strips of spicy jerky and mountain berries all made or grown by us. She asks questions about the test and I answer as best I can keeping in mind she is technically a civilian and can't be told everything. As we're walking along I spot Saki and she joins us happily munching on our food. The meeting between Masamoto and Saki was interesting as she takes just as much joy irritating as she does torturing me. We tell her who our instructor is and she smiles before putting on a slightly put out face. "Well I know Hanga and he's a good man. Patient and knowledgeable you probably noticed he's a steady guy. Focuses on support as a genjutsu caster and also uses strong earth jutsu to defend and change the playing field, literally sometimes. I don't know if he will be a very good match for you two though. He only knows the basics of swordsmanship Masa and he won't be able to improve your taijutsu Kaneki."

She has a melancholy look on her face as she finishes and I reach up and pat her on the shoulder which is at head height for me as I've hit a growth spurt recently and will finally start growing. I smile at her and give her a hug, "I'm still going to train with you Saki-sensei don't you worry."

She is a bit shocked I initiated the hug but gives me a quick hug back. I see her eyes are a little moist and kick myself for not realising how affected by this she was. She wipes her eyes and jokes back, "Who said I wanted to keep teaching a brat like you?" but there's no heat to her words.

We leave my Grandmother in the markets and head towards our training ground. Masa and I start warming up for our afternoon training when Saki leaves us to 'pick up something cool.' We finish our laps then start some light sparring, me to keep up my taijutsu skills while Masa needs to be able to fight if he loses his sword. I'm more skilled then he is but I know that if he had a sword I would be toast at close range, Saki moans about it constantly, I don't have the spirit to be a taijutsu specialist. That's alright though I will still train it. A ninja who doesn't practise is a dead ninja and it's always useful to have advanced skills. I sweep my leg under Masamoto but he hops over it swinging his legs around to axe my head. His problem is he mainly uses his legs. Not really a big problem for a sword user because when you see him fighting with his swords you realise you also have to watch out for his long legs. I quickly snap out a back fist nailing him a centimeter to the left of his groin. He backs of quickly to check there's no damage (fair enough I've broken enough of his bones to worry) then glares at me. "That's not very sportsmanlike." He whines. He acts so mature with others but he reserves his annoying childishness for me.

Saki, who had been sneaking up behind him, grabs him by the groin and lifts him into the air. "You shuold be more careful if you want to keep your manhood intact. I know most people won't be as… gentle, as Kaneki or me" she purrs into his ear.

Masa looks on the verge of a panic attack but she lets him down and he scurries over to me. "Please protect me from your crazy sensei."

"What makes you think I can protect you? She's been beating me up for years and I haven't figured out how to escape yet."

Saki saunters over to us. "Fear not my young apprentice. You know I would never hurt such an AMAZING VIGOUR FILLED YOUTH!" She is very close to us when she yells the last part. Sometimes I wonder for her sanity. "Anyway," she sweeps her hair back, "I got what I forgot. Are you curious what it is?"

"If it's got anything to do with the fact you relapsed into your VIGOUR speeches then I'm worried what it could be." Ever since she scared off a bunch of children in a playground with her rants Saki has been trying to tone it down much to the relief of the people around her (me).

"Well if you don't want to see what your affinity is then I'll just go home then…" she's grinning at us, she knows I've been dying to find out and Masamoto is curious too. "There's just one thing that makes this a little bit more serious." She is acting a little nervous a complete flip from her previous excited aura.

"That thing would be me." The deep gravelly voice. The fact I didn't sense them coming. The casual aura of 'You're all going to be crushed by my presence'. What the fuck is the Raikage doing here?

Saki giggles, "That's one way to ask but usually we try to be more polite to our resident kage kaneki-kun." Shit I said it out loud.

I turn to the Raikage and giving him a winning smile I try again, "Hello My Lord Raikage, to what do we owe the pleasure." I got so freaked I translated an english greeting into this language and it sounds _weird_.

The Raikage just grins. He may be younger then most Kage's and prone to fits of anger but I guess he's pretty chill. "I told you I would be keeping an eye on your progress Kaneki. I will examine your's and Mr Ieyasu's elemental affinity and if you have a lightning affinity, like me, I will give you some pointers from time to time." Somebody pinch me. The damn Raikage, stringest shinobi in the land of LIGHTNING wants to help me in my training.

"You honour me My Lord. First we will have to check my affinity though. If I don't have lightening but Masamoto does, would it be possible for you to give him some tips instead?" He frowns but gives a nod. It probably sounds arrogant of me to ask that but I don't want Masa feeling left out. He's the only person my age I consider a real comrade so I want him well trained. Saki hands us both a piece of paper and is about to explain how to use it but is stopped by the Raikage.

He smiles at her and gestures for the paper she has left over and she hands them to him. He sets out 5 pieces on the ground a makes us kneel with him. "I'm doing this because I'll oneday need to teach and you're good practice." That earns a sweatdrop from Saki. "What you need to do is manipulate some chakra and push it through the paper. Make sure not to mould it to much and you can't use hand signs. The paper is very susceptible to the elements so it will pick it up easily but you can accidentally put it off. I've seen people over mould their chakra too much and been shown with 2 or 3 affinities but that shouldn't happen when you're so young. Eventually you may build a second affinity but for now we need to know your main one and how strong it is. Watch closely. My major affinity is lightning and I am able to form fire and wind chakra too, just not as well." As he mentions the elements he touches each paper. The lightning paper instantly scrunches together into a tightly packed ball which raises Saki's eyebrows. I remember from Naruto he was known as one of the best lightning manipulators in history. The fire paper sets on fire and the wind tears jaggedly halfway through the paper. Saki Reaches over and channels some of her earth chakra into one and it crumbles into course sand.

Saki takes her turn lecturing, "Depending upon how strong your affinity is you will get one of those reactions. The one we can't show you is water but if you have that the stronger your affinity the more the paper turns to water. You two take your turns and we will explain what it means." Masa and I take our papers and push our chakra into them. I finish first because I'm better at chakra control then him and my paper scrunches up in my hands. A few seconds later Masa's sets on fire like the Raikage's demonstration. "Ok so that is simple. Masa you have a weak affinity to fire. That's not to much of a problem because it means you can be more diverse early on but you will find it harder to perform large Jutsu."

Masa just shrugs, "I plan to be a sword master so I never planned to do to much with Jutsu. It doesn't matter to much to me."

The Raikage frowns at him, "A good ninja uses all the tools in his arsenal. Trust me boy if you want to succeed you will learn to use fire jutsu with your sword elemental affinity or not." Masa looks shocked at the rebuke for a moment then nods at him with a determined look on his face. I envy his indomitable spirit. He then turns to me, "As I suspected, you do have a lightening affinity, a strong one for your age. For this afternoon I will teach you some lightening tricks then leave you with some scrolls I thought useful when mastering our element."

I bow to him, "You are to kind Lord Raikage."

Saki takes Masamoto by the arm and starts to lead him off. I hear her talking as she walks away, "Your affinity is quite rare here but because you want to practice swords, you can practice against me." Good for him.

I turn and the Raikage is looking at me in a way that reminds me of being shirtless under a midday sun in Australia. He's powerful but if I am smart he won't hurt me. He beckons me over and I take a seat in front of him. Both of us are sitting cross legged when he makes me hold my hands out palms facing inwards. "Today you're going to learn the most basic lightning training exercise. You will be making lightning chakra jump from one hand to the other." I watch as a single spark jumps from his left to right. "To improve you add more and more sparks and then you start doing it

from each finger." I watch as one spark a second becomes two then four then it's a constant current jumping from one hand to another. He splays his fingers then each of them connects to the corresponding finger. A smirk appears on his face as the currents start jumping between each other making quite an impressive light show. He stops then gestures to me. "Now it's your turn. Bring chakra to your right hand and change it to lightning form then push it through to the other hand. Only do a small amount, trust me."

I pull up a tiny amount and put it in the tips of my fingers then pause. How do you change chakra element? I feel the Raikage with my chakra sense and he is literally buzzing with the feeling of lightning chakra. I memorise how the erratic buzzing of his chakra feels and imagine the chakra in my fingers feeling like that. Slowly I feel it change until I'm sure I'm holding lightning chakra. Then I push it through my fingers. And nothing happens. A frown alights upon my face and I strain harder until I hear a deep booming laugh and look up in surprise to see the Raikage laughing. In my distraction my hands move to my sides and a spark jumps out to my ryo pouch electrocuting me. I let out un involuntary (and unmanly) eep which sets the Raikage off again. "Ahh kid this sure beats paperwork. You look so annoyed when it wouldn't work, I think I know why my sensei liked annoying us so much." He notices my pouting face and gives a good natured sigh. "Look I've got to go back before B pounds me for dodging paperwork for so long." I look up and realise the sun is starting to set and the air has developed the chill of just before dark. "In the mean time the answer to your problem is very simple. Keep your hands closer together. Also just because I'm feeling nice, and I remember it happening to me the first time I did this, make sure you have your other hand ready to accept the lightning chakra or you'll burn yourself and it will be more difficult. Finally, NEVER try to absorb another persons lightning chakra. If you aren't fully in tune with it and you try to absorb it you can fry your pathways. Even your own lightning jutsu are dangerous to absorb after travelling to long in the air because they deteriorate." I nod at him. It is a real honour to be taught by such a busy man and I know he can't do this often so I should listen. At the same time I know there are people who absorb other peoples chakra so if I use my chakra sense to attune myself to a jutsu I could possibly survive it. Not something I want to be using all the time but if I can use it to absorb Sasuke's ultimate lightning jutsu of death or the chidori then it is worth learning.

"Thankyou Raikage-sama. I will make sure to work hard on this. It seems very interesting." Truth is I'm on the fence about it. Water and earth type would be really useful for defensive techniques, fire and wind are crazy good at killing people but lightning was never really covered in the anime. It should be super dangerous as it travels at the speed of light but people dodge lightning jutsu all the time. I'll keep my mind open but this world is won by the fastest and the smartest and all lightning seems good at is blasting through things. "Good luck with your paperwork."

He groans and stands up stretching out after sitting down for so long. "Yeah well, the real problem with becoming the Raikage is the paperwork. I swear I'm getting grey hairs. Alright kid I'll send someone with some scrolls for you to work on. I'll check in on you in a month or two if I have the time. Until then work hard and don't let me down. I don't like wasting time teaching a lazy prodigy." With that he turns and with a crackle of lightning he runs of faster than I can see. Oh yeah he had some sort of lightning cloak that made him fast. Maybe lightning element isn't so useless after all?

 ***A/N: Woah a chapter uploaded EARLY? Long story short I went on a walk did some thinking came home and started writing. I want to get more of the story writen because I know how much I hate waiting for chapters so for the 20 or so people following this story, I hope you are enjoying it all and I will do my best to churn out some better quality chapters. Please leave a review, I like to know what you're thinking but no cooking over hot coals, ok? Have a nice week :D**


	11. Chapter 11

I walk into the training field designated to my squadron an hour early at 7 o'clock the next day and I'm still one of the last people to arrive. Apparently everyone wants to impress our new instructor. That earns a half shrug from me and I head over to Masa who is working out like he'd been here for the past few hours which he probably has. He's sitting on the wall while doing situps a clever combination of chakra control and physical fitness. He turns to me and gives me a smile and jumps down. We're both clad in tank tops and shorts because after living for so long in these indoor training rooms you learn that they get hot really quickly. I give him a blank look as he comes over towelling of the sweat a bit. "No don't stop for me Masa you looked like you were doing fine by yourself."

He gives me an annoyed grin. Masa is probably the only reason I got any effort ratings from teachers as he always pushed me into more work outs, more study, etc. He throws the towel at me, I lean out of the way of it, then he claps me on the shoulder. "No problem Kaneki. I need someone to spar against and you're just the person I was looking for."

I see him reaching for his sword and know I'm going to get a full warmup. If we were just

doing a fist fight I know I have the advantage of being better trained than him but if he uses his sword I'm going to feel the burn and I'm not in my best shape at the moment. "Hey Masa when are we going to get you a real sword, all the famous swordsman have famous swords but yours isn't even named."

It's a good diversionary tactic and he takes the bait with a frown. "I don't have the money to commission a custom sword, you know that. If I could I would but for now it's just a standard tachi. If it's so important you can name it."

I give him a grin and strike a pose, "Then from this day forth, I Kaneki Kazama first of my name and sower of much confusion does dub rightly and thusly your sword, Stabby McStabface."

The scene I was making attracted alot of attention and promptly caused all our spectators to sweat drop and disperse muttering, "Sower of confusions is right."

Masamoto just gives me a smile and draws said sword, "Not really something that inspires legends but how about we try out the maiden voyage of Stabby McStabface." This is why I hang with Masamoto, he accepts my weirdness for what it is, weird.

I give a small wince and start rubbing the side of my head. "Do you think you could let me stretch and warmup normally instead I'm kind of under the weather at the moment." My movements attract his gaze to my hands which he notices are covered in burn marks and he raises an eyebrow in questioning. "I spent a lot of time on my lightning control last night. It was getting late, my control was getting erratic and I started burning myself every now and then." A second eyebrow joins the first as his eyes inspect my hands and upper arms, each burn another visible marker of my lack of control. "Ok not every now and then but when you burn yourself every 4th time and you do it well over a thousand times it adds up you know? I'll make it up to you later."

He continues chatting with me as I run through my warm up and stretches then we show off our elemental training to each other. I had almost got it down last night but with all the metal weaponry carried by the nearby people I end up burning myself even more. I can conduct my lightning in the palms of my hands but when I try catching it somewhere else like my fingers or my elbows I just zapped myself. I mention this to Masa and he nods with a look of thought on his face. That or he left the oven on in his house again. "Maybe it's because you're not used to using those tenketsu? If you did it with the soles of your feet where you usually treewalk from you might do better." That… is actually a well thought out hypothesis, Masa surprises me like that. It reminds me of the time I crawled up the walls in my old house. It's all about expelling in the right place and I know the tenketsu in the fingers are allot smaller and not used for chakra emission. Before I can test out his idea our captain walks in.

"Alright anyone who isn't here is shit out of luck cause I'm only explaining this once. There is a board at the entrance of our training room you hopefully noticed. I will post D-rank missions there for you to take when you're ready. Tear it from the board then verify it with me. I expect you to complete at least 7 D ranks a week. Once I believe you're ready I will personally give you a c-rank. Once you're promoted to a real squadron there will be higher level missions on offer. Some missions require more than one person but it will still only count as one if you do a 3 person mission solo. I'll help you if you come ask me for help but otherwise it's all about self improvement. Get to work."

I look over at Masa and indicate the job board with a nod of the head. He walks over with me and we start checking out the board to get the best jobs. Most of the people in the room move with us to grab the better jobs while a few walk off to continue training. Eyeing the crowd around the board Masa snorts and reaches over them and tears off a random job then smiles at me. I sigh then walk over with him to our captain and we hand him the mission. "Ieyasu Masamoto and Kazama Kaneki to clear rubble from an accident in training field 52. You two know the way?" I nod at him and he notes it down in a ledger. "You can deposit any rocks near the slag heaps for the mines, if you find any usable equipment it's yours and once you're done notify me and I'll give you the chit you can take to KCO for your mission payment. Scram."

We head up the mountains to do our first mission. I already knew that we wouldn't be doing anything exciting at the start of our careers but thankfully Masa is taking it pretty well with only minor pouting and whining at having to do manual labour, though he quickly shuts up when I tell him it is good strength training to lug rocks around. We arrive at the training field a peak over from where we usually train and get to work. A stray lightning or earth jutsu had obviously caused a small rockslide on the mountainside that covered part of the field and the path that lead higher into the mountains. We slowly move into a rhythm of me breaking the rocks into more manageable pieces with carefully placed chakra enhanced strikes while Masa sprints carts down to one of the slag heaps that litter the base of the mountains, cause of the many mines that run through the Kumo peaks like a crazy rabbits warren. We finish quickly enough but even so we have both worked up a sweat from the exercise and my arms are slightly numb from the continuous rock pounding.

I move to the edges of the training field and start hunting through the scrub brush for lost kunai while idly picking any herbs I recognise and putting them into seperate sacks. I rejoin Masa after completing my circuit, he had been inspecting the actual training area, and while he has salvaged more than me most of it is broken or chipped. He points at my second bag full of herbs, "What are you going to do with that? Drug some Chuunin again?" An unfortunate case of truth or dare had me spilling that story to him a while ago.

"I'm going to sell some and preserve some others. If you spent less time _polishing your sword_ " I grin at him and he blushes a bit, "then you would know that some of the herbs that grow up here are rare and quite useful. There aren't many other places that are this high up and have constant chakra usage nearby to help grow the chakra affected plants." I have theorised that by using chakra it somehow disturbs the nature chakra nearby that acts as a fertiliser maybe? All I know is when a jutsu doesn't destroy the landscape the flora nearby flourish afterwards. I had done some minor experiments at my grandmothers greenhouse and although it doesn't affect growth speed it made vegetables taste better and herbs used in medicine more potent.

"Well if they're so rare why don't you just grow them in a farm?"

"Because most of the plants require the conditions to be just right and wouldn't grow right in a large farm. They need to be up here in the mountains where the soil is right and the temperature is constantly colder than you can get in the lowland farms."

Masa gives me a confused look and thinks over his response. I am talking using information I remember from gardening in the first world because science in this world is massively skewed towards warfare and learning how to grow things well aren't really important to them. Hell they have computers and metal foundry equipment that wouldn't be out of place in the late 20th century but the greenhouse, which is considered cutting edge farming technology here, was created in the early 18th century over 200 years before computers. Masamoto finally looks up at me and asks, "Why can't you just make a farm up in the mountains?" I'm quiet for a moment. He raises a good point actually. The Incans and Nepalese have been making step farms for thousands of years in the mountains, it's obviously possible. The only reason I can think of as to why it hasn't been done is that Kumogakure was built as a stronghold first, then developed industry and mining as a secondary source of income.

"Well I guess it would be because it would take a lot of free time to set up and without the right contacts it wouldn't be worthwhile. While the herbs may be rare you can't use them as your main product because you don't need them in bulk. You would need to already have traders and then just add it to your trade route. It would massively increase profits but without a strong base it would be a waste of time." I see his eyes are glazing over the way it does when I overthink things but what he is saying has a good point.

We finish gathering equipment and start making our way back to the village. We pass by a blacksmith and sell him the various scrap metal we picked up while Masa and I split the Kunai and shuriken between us. There wasn't much left in working order after the landslide but it's a good bonus seeing as the missions don't pay very well. I started cleaning the equipment as Masa handed in the mission to our commander. He waved me over so I set down the kunai and walked over.

He sat there rubbing the stubble on his face as he looked down at his report. "Good work you two. If you want to take another mission you'll have to wait till later this afternoon or tomorrow. You're free to go train or do as you wish." And so we left. Masa split from me to go play with his sword some more, I wonder if he really understands that joke, while I walked back to the training grounds we were cleaning. After walking around the edges and scrub I find another patch of herbs poking out from an outcropping in the rock. I take out a blunted kunai and gently lever them out of the hard soil with their roots still attached. I carefully place each one in a different pocket that litter my shinobi uniform. Once I have a few samples of the more useful herbs I make my way to a small area with a small stream I remember from my youth, not part of the training grounds and rarely visited. I start clearing away some ground and diverting the stream so it pools in a shallow basin I dug before it continues. For the rest of the day I work on turning the small area into a garden with space to expand and add more plants.

Once the sun starts to go down and I have transplanted all the plants I brought with me into neat rows I brush the dirt off my hands and jog back home. As I go I whistle the theme to the lord of the rings and nod to people as I pass them. My plans for this life are slow and are deliberately vague. it will require patience, cunning and a whole lot of luck to survive in this world. First thing I need to put together is a signature move. I know this world revolves more around backstabbing and shadowy fighting but having an ability to bail me out of combat would be useful as at the moment all I have is better then average taijutsu. Plus signature moves are cool and a surprised shinobi is a dead shinobi so it couldn't hurt to have something up my sleeve.

I walk into the kitchen and give my grandmother a kiss on the cheek quickly eat the dinner she set out then make preparations for what will be one of my signature abilities. I collect all of my throwable weaponry ie: kunai, shuriken, senbon, caltrops, various debris etc. and head into my bedroom to sleep. What? I'm not going back outside at night for no reason. My plans can wait for tomorrow and there are scary ninja's outside. I slowly fall asleep while watching my equipment with anticipation for tomorrow. I have a vague idea of what I will design but it's going to take time and lots of help from my instructors.

The next morning I quickly get ready and head to the indoor training rooms. It's considered quite rood to take up one of the limited outdoor training grounds if you're not going to be throwing things around that require a lot of space. As it is a set up in a small room about the size of a classroom and stare at my equipment. The 3 elements I want are running through my head. Speed, accuracy and power. I know I'm not the main character of the story - my name isn't Naruto duh - so I don't have plot armour to keep me alive forever. Instead I need to make sure I survive by being smart. The one thing that always bugged me was the immortality of basically everyone in fights. Little genin Sasuke tosses out a fireball larger than him? Doesn't matter because his target either switched, was already a clone or simply jumped. My chakra sense will help me around the clone issue but speed will be necessary to outpace them before they switch. Power? It's more penetration that I'm going for. A 'powerful' jutsu seems just about worthless because the rasengan, which is a technique perfected by not one but 2 hokage's and is considered one of the most damaging jutsus in this world, is shrugged off by most people. Don't believe me? For such a dangerous ability Kabuto takes one straight in the chest but gets up with some internal damage. That's why if I want to launch an ability it's not going to explode in their faces. It's going to pierce through their body so I KNOW that it has actually hurt them. It just makes sense, in my native world explosives and concussive waves are so dangerous because we are shaken to death by them but here with chakra reinforcing them shinobi can survive punches from Tsunade that have been known to send people through multiple walls which would normally turn you into a nice red paste. So no, I will not be relying on blunt force trauma for my abilities.

That's why I'm so lucky to have a lightning affinity. It along with wind and possibly water are the more penetrative elements so I've got a good start.

I pick up a kunai. The trusty gardening tool of the shinobi it shall be the start of my technique. I like shuriken and senbon are kinda cool but I like efficiency and you can do a lot more with a kunai then a shuriken. I start by running lightning chakra through the kunai. It becomes immediately apparent that this is a bad idea as the current circles back and shocks me while melting part of the cheap kunai. It is at this point I remember that there is chakra conductive metals that high tier shinobi use while I have basic pig iron kunai. I stab the partially melted kunai into a training post then put my hand about 10cm away from it. I then focus the lightning chakra and try to push it into the kunai from a distance, like my exercises of jumping arcs between fingers. A small arc leaps between after I push a large amount of chakra into it. I start moving my hand back further until I reach half a meter and instead the arcs are jumping to the various weaponry on my body. Ouch.

I shrug and move to step 2 of my testing. Picking up the copper wire I made from scraps I wrap it carefully around the handle of my kunai. Stepping backwards I grin at my new receptor and push chakra through my hands. The arc is much stronger now and a visible bolt of lightning breaches the 10cm gap. I step back to half a meter and try again. This time an arc reaches across to the kunai before a second lances down to my waist and fries me again. I growl in frustration and funnel more chakra towards my hands. The arcs start zapping out once every few seconds with more and more hitting the kunai until its repetitively hitting the kunai each time. It's at this point I realise I only control the chakra until it leaves my body. Trying to direct the arcs once it leaves me is hard work. Instead, with the instinctual knowledge being a superhuman, lightning spitting ninja gives you, I can for a brief moment as it passes my skin direct it towards something. At the moment I'm directing it towards the kunai but my accuracy increased after I started directing it towards the residual lightning chakra left in the kunai. I cut the flow and wrap another kunai in copper coil and stab it next to the mess that was my first experiment. It has fused to the wall and is blackened with soot. Before I step back from the new kunai i channel a small amount of lightning chakra into the kunai then stop after it shocks me. Some old lessons in physics reminds me of positive and negative charge as I realise the folly of putting more electrons into a kunai which would just make it more difficult to target. Instead I channel my normal chakra into the kunai. I move quickly as although chakra strengthens kunai it also erodes it and I step back to half a meter. I push chakra past my fingertips and it _SLAMS_ into the kunai with a satisfactory discharge. I slump to the ground sweating and singed while grinning like an idiot. I don't need any lightning wolfs or weird shit like that. I have the power of barely remembered science to give me strength!

 **A/N: Contrary to the evidence I have not stopped writing. I was attacked by rabid french people with sharpened baguettes and had to hold them off by learning their language which makes it hard to write in english. That said this chapter was also a pain to write and probably to read because I felt like it just kept going on and on just shoveling info into your faces. The next few chapters will be a lot better and I'm about at the point where I can stop info dumping I hope. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter and welcome back to my story. Yours truly: a tired boi.**


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